


Come Slowly To Me (I’ve Been Waiting)

by MalevolentReverie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: ABO-esque, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Daddy Kink, Doctor Kylo Ren, Dystopia, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Human Trafficking, I don’t know how to tag this lol, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), MalRev Lite, Manipulation, Older Man/Younger Woman, Power Imbalance, Rey is 16, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Taboo, Touch-Starved, Unresolved Sexual Tension, kylo is 35
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:20:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23303791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentReverie/pseuds/MalevolentReverie
Summary: Kylo is a neurosurgeon and Cold, and has a few months before he’s Iced—frozen inside his own body and unable to move. But as he comes to the end of his rope, he meets a young Warm girl in a park and finds himself unable to stay away from her.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1120
Kudos: 1645





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Restricted Work] by [Tersie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tersie/pseuds/Tersie). Log in to view. 



> so I’m really sick of writing ABO that everyone else is doing, and I came up w a fairly simple idea that I can bring into different fics. Trying it out in this one so bear with me!!!
> 
> song is go slowly by Radiohead

On a balmy spring afternoon, Kylo’s body temperature plunges to a new low.

Sitting up from his nap in the sun is more difficult than usual, limbs stiff from the chill of his miserable seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit. His bed has been pushed under the widest beam of sunlight that streams in during the hottest part of the day—and still, he winces at the reading on his wrist. Seventy two. Sixty means he’s Iced.

Wincing, he flexes his faintly purple fingers and limps from his cavernous bedroom, all modern curved edges and chrome. Fuck. Just got new meds to bring things up into the high seventies and they clearly aren’t fucking working.

Being Cold, the temperature doesn’t really bother him: it’s the stiffness. Muscles lock up when they hit a certain temperature and no amount of basking in the sun like a lizard will make them work right. But it gives him some reprieve—lets him sleep for a couple hours and stop his near constant movement.

He’s a little looser when he makes it downstairs to his kitchen, and finds his housekeeper already dropped by to do the laundry. He grits his teeth as he dials the doctor and ambles laps around the new island that still smells like fresh wood. Wasn’t cheap. He doesn’t do _cheap_.

“Ren?”

“Seventy-two,” Kylo grits out without greeting. Hux knows the drill.

He whistles. “The new medication isn’t working, then.”

“No shit. What the fuck do I do?”

“Come down to the office and we’ll discuss. You should keep moving—”

Kylo hangs up and tosses the phone across the island, scowling. Like he doesn’t fucking know he needs to keep moving. He can’t stop if he doesn’t want to come down with a major case of deadness.

Footsteps echo through his flat as he makes his way up to his bedroom and changes into a thick black sweater and jeans, and they echo back on his descent downstairs. He mutters as he searches for the keys to his Maserati and almost forgets his wallet. Can’t forget that. That’s all anyone ever seems to want from him.

Things get better once he’s outside. Muscles cooperate and he doesn’t have to drag his feet like a paralyzed dog on his way into the garage. He sucks in a deep breath of fresh air and leans against the car when he finds it, eyes closed. Not Iced yet. Keep moving. Be Warm. Be Warm.

Not _too_ Warm. Pushovers.

He slips into the driver’s seat and makes sure he’s reached seventy-five before he starts the engine. Got a ticket for starting when he was too cold; police don’t like people driving if they might suddenly Ice up or in the case of Warms—Burnt.

Dramatic when people Burn out. Ash everywhere. Implosion like a supernova.

It’s a quick ride through the city to Hux’s office, and Kylo wastes no time when he’s inside. The receptionist shrinks and doesn’t say anything, just lets him walk straight to the back through the waiting room full of other Cold people like him. Not a ton in the world. Way more Warms. They breed like fucking rabbits and have the intelligence to match.

Hux is in his office filled to the brim with dusty old textbooks and a couple pictures of his wife, Rose. Kylo lets himself in and slams the door, rattling a picture on Hux’s desk.

He scowls and adjusts the picture. “Mister Ren.”

Kylo resists the urge to sit in the chair and paces instead to keep his blood moving. Went to college with Hux. Should’ve been a thermoregulation doctor instead of a brain surgeon. Should’ve.

“Stasix isn’t working,” Kylo snaps. “Give me that other shit—Endo… Endo…”

“Endosure.”

“Yeah. Write the script.”

Hux studies him for a minute, long fingers clasped on his desk. He sighs and closes his laptop.

“I told you three months ago that you have less than a year until you’re… incapacitated.”

“Yes, you made the hospital put me on medical leave—which is why you’re going to write the fucking script, and any other script I ask you for.”

“You can’t perform delicate surgery if your body temperature isn’t maintained above eighty, Kylo.” Hux pauses, avoiding his eyes. “You know there’s only one solution to rigor mortis like this.”

No. Kylo glowers as he paces, shaking his head. No. He isn’t going to let some insufferable Warm into his home to act as a space heater—certainly won’t make it _permanent_. He’d rather slip into full rigor than share his life with one of those fucks.

“Write the script,” he snaps.

Hux obliges, and Kylo knocks over the picture of Rose one more time before he leaves.

—•—

The new medication only manages to bring Kylo’s temperature to seventy six.

Around dusk he decides to go for a walk to the park, ignoring phone calls from his mother demanding to know his high and low for the day. He reported it to her all through college and grad school, documenting each gradual drop his old doctor was never concerned with. No more.

It’s inevitable now. He’s heading to the same fate his grandfather met.

Kylo sits on a bench under some trees, head tilted, watching people going about their evening. There are a couple support groups for this stage of the process; for learning to cope with the inescapable hell he’s soon going to slip into. It doesn’t interest him. He may spend the next few months or however long he has just watching the world go by the way he always has. Quiet. Observant.

He gazes at his hand draped over the back of the bench, curling his fingers. Bits of his humanity are ebbing away as the cold creeps in, though his skin has never had the typical healthy glow it should, and he’s never had much use for other people. Gaining reptilian features isn’t unheard of. Anakin’s eyes gradually took on the likeness of a snake. Hopefully he’ll go faster than—

“Heads up!”

Kylo blinks and narrowly dodges a kickball that whizzes past his head. Emotion doesn’t come quickly to him most days but like earlier with Hux, he feels a flash of anger that simmers, and he glares at the girl trotting his way.

In the thin evening light, she _glows._ Warms often do, from whatever it is inside them that draws them ever closer to their dramatic fiery death, like the mysterious essence that draws Kylo closer to shriveling like a spider. He winces and she apologizes.

“Sorry!” she calls. “I’m sorry. I get so hot—can’t wear the hoodie forever.”

He squints at her as his eyes adjust and promptly feels a peculiar _pull_ in his chest. Magnetism. It happens in the blink of an eye as she wanders behind the bench for her ball and he leans up and out and considers running. Same temperature. Inverse. She’s in the same stage and she’s outside playing fucking kickball, which is enough activity to make her implode—

“Sorry, sir,” she repeats.

His pulse roars in his ears. Kylo looks as she turns away and he glimpses brown hair and a round face with freckles, then she’s zipping away because in his state, he repulses her. He’s some undead thing. A corpse. _She_ is light and life and heat bound into a physical form that won’t contain her forever.

And she’s gone. His eyes are wide, searching the growing darkness in disbelief. She can’t be gone. He can still feel her pulling him into her orbit.

Kylo stands, turning in a circle, dazed, hardly listening to his wrist band beeping in the quiet emptiness she’s left behind. His hand trembles at his side, quickly wilting from soft pink to pale white as her warmth is sucked away. She can’t be gone. How did she disappear so fast? Where did she go?

He glances at his band. Eighty one, and she didn’t even touch him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!! Wow!! The kind comments last chapter and support of everyone is so appreciated!!!

The girl is, quite suddenly, the only thing Kylo can think about.

He’s spent the past months stewing over his removal from St. Peter’s and done little else but plan how to force his way back into his position. One of the top neurosurgeons in the _country_ and they dared to _remove_ him after he deigned to work at their miserable hospital in the first place.

But his bitter simmering anger is redirected toward the Warm girl who flitted away before he could get a good look at her. She’s going to kill herself running around like that—and it irritates him thinking she would be careless enough to run around at all in her state. She’s on the brink. Maybe a few months before the star collapses and brings her with it.

It’s a waste. Pure stupidity. Warms just need to slow down and the progression to Burning out is much more gradual. All she has to do is fucking slow down.

Kylo paces his condo, rubbing his mouth, a hand on his hip. His steps echo off the empty walls and the city lights flicker through wide, clear windows, which he typically enjoys admiring at night—but not tonight. He can only sleep during the day; only sunlight keeps him from becoming painfully frozen, which means he has the entire night to figure out how he’s going to find the fucking girl.

His phone rings. Still pacing, he snaps as he answers it, and hears an irritating laugh.

“You’re so testy today, Ren.”

Hux. Typical. Always calls at the wrong time.

Kylo glares out the windows. “Ran into a Warm girl at the park.”

“How upsetting that must’ve been. How’s the Endosure?”

“She was two feet away from me and I broke eighty.” He pauses, working his jaw and looking through his reflection. “I felt… I felt something.”

“Well if your dick still works, that’s fantastic news, but you needn’t be so coy about your erections. We’re all doctors here.”

“Fuck off,” Kylo snaps.

Hux laughs to himself like he always does. He’s a smug son of a bitch. It’s been worse since he met his Warm—Rose—some undergrad majoring in psychology. Doesn’t shut the fuck up about it and admittedly, Kylo has never understood the ‘magnestism’ Hux has described. Aspects of being Cold or Warm seem _too_ magical to exist, but… magnetism certainly does. Why else would a physician marry a _psychology undergrad_?

Unfortunately, like with Rose, the mystery girl may not be entirely keen on the idea of living with a Cold. But he needs to find her before he worries about what to offer her.

“You’ll find her again,” Hux says.

“I don’t want to.”

He scoffs. “Well there’s no escaping it now. Consider yourself lucky—most people never find their valence.”

“Well I don’t fucking want her.”

“People in your position take out _loans_ to find their match. They clean out their life savings; go bankrupt. You just found her in a park—for free—and she’s the only way you’re going to avoid being Iced.” Hux sniffs. “I suppose you can go visit that husk of your grandfather if you’d like some insight into—”

Kylo hangs up. Fine. He’ll go waste time looking.

Thankfully, the influx of emotion wanes after a few hours spent circling the park. Irritation gives way to the void and rain falls, further complicating Kylo’s plans to search the area for the girl. As far as he can tell, she isn’t anywhere nearby—but Warms love rain.

It only serves to stiffen his muscles and stoke his temper. He stands under a tree with his hands in his coat, scowling across the empty park as rain drizzles around him on all sides. This will be when she’ll wander out. It will help cool her down; let her be active. Where could she be? Does she come here often? Will she even speak to him?

Rose and Hux reached an arrangement—maybe he can with this strange girl, even if he _loathes_ pampering some irritating Warm. Naturally, Kylo is drawn to them, but they always seem so fucking smug that he can’t tolerate them for long.

Yet here he is. Hoping. Tuning in to the insistent tug in his chest trying to lead him to where his valence is: maybe considered a soulmate in another world, but much less romantic in this one. This is about survival for both parties, in which they perfectly balance one another so neither meets a miserable end.

Rain pounds the pavement. Kylo clenches his jaw and rolls his shoulders, casting one more hopeful glance before he turns to leave. There’s nothing romantic about any of this.

—•—

A handful of days pass in the same abject misery Kylo has grown accustomed to, now worsening from the insistent, irritating pull of his valence—who he cannot find for the fucking life of him.

He spends his evenings and nights letting the vague pressure of her lead him through unpleasant neighborhoods and back alleys, but it seems she is in constant motion; she’s always flitting to the next spot, which suggests to Kylo that his Warm girl may be homeless. Or a prostitute. Either one isn’t ideal, but she is unlikely to be one of the one percent of Warms that graduated college.

They’re stupid. It isn’t rude—it’s a fact. He’s likely to listen to rushed tirades about a frivolous art ‘project’ and bizarre conspiracy theories and other things his pragmatic Cold mind has no time for. Silly things.

Warms line some of the alleys, living in boxes or dumpsters or lying around on sleeping bags. None of them glow. Not to the degree Kylo’s did. She should stick out like a sore thumb in the gloomy shadows but he grows increasingly frustrated as he skirts Warms reaching for him and doesn’t see a flicker of the girl. Stabler Warms closer to being Teps—Tepid, or people who have thermal equilibrium—usually function well enough to hold a job and a home.

The further they crawl toward Burning out, the more frenetic and emotional they become. Anxious. He isn’t sure how it feels, as becoming Iced is a more tedious process, but he’s read in medical journals that there are often complaints of crippling anxiety and psychosis: thus, many Warms become homeless.

“You lookin’ for somethin’?”

Kylo glances down at an old man crouched on the edge of a cardboard box. He’s enormous and gelatinous and not a Warm, and has no fucking business speaking to him.

The man raises his brows. “Y’look lost.”

“I hope I don’t look like a person you can mug—because that won’t end well for you.”

He laughs, raucous enough to stir a sleeping Warm a couple feet away. She rolls over and groans, hooded blue eyes wandering the wall before she dozes off again. Plenty of them take drugs to slow the process of Burning out, but with their fast metabolisms, most drugs can’t keep up.

“Name’s Unkar,” the man says in a gruff voice.

“Charmed.”

Unkar smirks and gives Kylo a once-over. He knits his gnarled fingers in his lap, clearly seeing the opportunity to do some business—and as he looks over the sickened women in the alley, Kylo realizes he’s been mistakenly browsing the wares.

“Interested?” Unkar asks.

“Not in the least. I’m looking for someone.”

“Are you? She a Warm?”

“Yes,” Kylo snaps, “and I’m sure I don’t need your help. Enjoy your alley.”

He turns and takes a few steps. He’s never paid for sex or the company of a Warm and isn’t going to start—

“Must’ve seen Rey, huh?”

Kylo stops. He works his jaw before he pivots, only to see Unkar nodding and still smirking.

“She’s at the end,” he sighs, shrugging. “Glowing now. Can’t miss her, even with the hoodie.”

“Where is she?”

Unkar snorts and barks a laugh.

“Rey’s my foster kid, you putz. Sixteen. I’m not sellin’ her to you.”

“I’m not asking to fucking _buy_ her.”

“Well I’m not telling you where she’s at. Don’t need you luring away the best pickpocket I’ve got.”

“If you’d prefer, I can beat the information out of you. I’ve been sorely in need of exercise.”

Rey. Fitting, with the glowing. Sixteen but that’s fine—Kylo has never wanted to fuck a teenager and he sure as hell won’t start now. He isn’t an _animal_.

Unkar rolls his eyes. “You can try, pretty boy. Or… if you got enough dough…” He purses his lips, shrugging, and Kylo’s eye twitches. “Could always take her off my hands for the right price.”

“I’m sure I’ll find her sooner or later. She isn’t hard to miss.”

“Maybe. But she’s always on the move, and real close to Burnin’ out. Might not find her in time.”

Kylo grits his teeth. “I’m not going to buy one of your sex slaves—”

“What d’you think I am?!” Unkar interrupts, offended. “Rey isn’t one of them! She wouldn’t be any good at it. Good little thief, though.” He taps his flabby jaw. “I could sell her for twenty grand.”

“Tell me where she is, or I swear to fucking god—”

Light spills across the bleak alley, and Kylo looks up, suddenly awash with heat. He blinks and his throat tightens.

Rey is rounding a corner with a plastic bag around her wrist. Her hood is down and the glow penetrates the darkness like a floodlight, stunning Kylo to silence for the few seconds it takes her to trot up to Unkar. She’s smeared some dirt on her cheeks that helps conceal the light but much of it still comes through, stubborn and blinding and he can’t look away.

She drops the bag at Unkar’s feet and sets her hands on her hips. Can’t be more than a foot shorter than Kylo, and her brown hair is drawn back in three buns. Needlessly complicated.

“Got some fruit,” Rey chirps, beaming.

Her gaze wanders up, eyes bright and _mesmerizing_ , irises like green liquid fire. Kylo can’t look away and can’t blink as she studies him, tilting her head, then her eyes narrow a bit as she realizes what he is. She doesn’t feel their valence like he does. Unfortunately, she doesn’t need him to survive.

Unkar grunts. “Hate bananas.”

Rey lowers her gaze and takes an obvious step away. Warmth radiates up Kylo’s fingertips and he considers kidnapping her for a split second—then considers buying her once the thought ebbs away.

“You need potassium,” Rey mutters. She folds her arms but doesn’t run off, studying the ground.

“Don’t tell me what I need, girl.”

She huffs and twists the worn toe of her sneaker into the damp pavement. Light dances through the alley and several of the other Warms lift their heads to wave to her or call out her name. She must have the same effect upon most people, Warm or Cold, and Kylo is seized by a possessive impulse to bottle her up for himself. He doesn’t want to share.

Rey wilts. Her discomfort is palpable, though after a handful of days she would adjust to the cold. Her green eyes flicker nervously from Unkar to the ground before she turns to dart away again.

Instinctively, Kylo grabs her forearm.

Sharp pain burns along his palm where the skin touches and Rey yelps. He releases, hissing—his palm is scarred pink, and she has a permanent black mark where his fingers closed around her skin. The light and heat are extinguished there and where he’s marked, a dull, aching warmth blooms.

He glances at his palm and back up but it’s too late. Rey has disappeared around the corner.

“Well—now you gotta buy her.”

Kylo’s heart pounds, watch hysterically beeping. He staggers forward a step and Unkar snaps at him to pay for his ‘merchandise’. That’s not good. That’s not fucking good.

“Hey! Moron! Rey ain’t gonna live with you if I don’t kick her out, so pay me for that merchandise you just stole!”

“I have to…” Kylo licks his lips, still watching the alley she vanished through. “I need to find her first.”

“She ain’t gonna go willingly, valence or not. Pay me or I’ll let her stay here until you’re both dead.”

The empty threats don’t matter much to him in that moment. Kylo leaves behind a furious Unkar and doesn’t rush as he resumes his search for Rey—because now he has cool, calm certainty that he’s going to find her.

She’s on the other end of a leash.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn’t sure if this would be lite or dark but w Rey being 16 I have no interest in romanticizing the relationship between her and Kylo. that doesn’t mean it will have a sad ending (more than likely will be an HEA) but this isn’t going to try to portray a healthy relationship either
> 
> just a warning going forward. NO noncon or graphic violence or major character death tho.

Rain comes about fifteen minutes into Kylo’s search, severely hampering his efforts to find the girl. He glares up at the thick black clouds and ignores the aching in his joints, winding through alleys and neighborhoods he he’s had nightmares about in his search for her. She must know that she can’t run forever. They have to be together—and he won’t hurt her.

His palm burns, throbbing with heat; a not-so-subtle reminder that he already hurt her. She could’ve gone the rest of her life ignoring him but now she never can. Now there’s no escape: she’ll always be on the other end of his leash, and he won’t be able to stop crawling towards her. Rey has the unfortunate gift of very powerful gravity.

Kylo pauses on the street under an awning, rolling his tongue inside his cheek. She’s nearby. Hiding. He can’t blame her—she’s probably terrified.

He glances around, narrowing his eyes. Can’t just grab her and drag her home with him. Valence or not, the police will have more than a few questions, and it still isn’t legal to kidnap homeless teenagers. She’s obviously hungry and fucking _homeless_ , and he can easily rectify both of those problems: all she has to do is come home with him and… he’ll figure out the rest.

Could always buy her. Twenty grand is nothing. She’ll be forced out of her alley and have nowhere else to go but home to him.

“Quit following me!”

Kylo’s heart gives a powerful beat and he quickly turns to face the alley.

Rey stands in the middle, fists clenched at her sides and skinny legs in a wide stance. She crosses her arms as he slowly regards her, then she sets her hands on her hips and crosses them again. The rain has washed away most of the dirt concealing her glow and she lights up the darkness all the way to the tips of Kylo’s shoes. Her forearm is jet black where he touched her.

All his life he’s dreaded the prospect of pampering a Warm—always resented them; always feared letting one in—but he’s violently possessed by an urge to pamper _this_ one, stricken with an unnatural impulse to feed and clothe and bathe her.

Kylo sticks his hands in his jacket pockets and studies Rey. Infuriating. Fucking infuriating.

She wriggles her jaw and scowls. “I’m not for _sale_ , y’know.”

“No? Unkar said I could have you for twenty thousand dollars.”

Her eyes widen for a second, maybe flickering with some hurt and surprise, before she sinks back into her scowl. Rey shrugs and rubs her nose.

“He can say whatever he wants,” she snaps, “but I’m not for sale. You can buy one of the other girls.”

“I don’t want to buy anyone.”

“Then why are you stalking me?”

She stamps her foot, balling her fists again and shifting forward an angry step. Their bond is new but he senses a quick pulse of fear that makes the hair stand up on his nape. So much emotion from her—she’s so alive and so emotional it takes his breath.

Rain falls. Rey is soaked like he is and he’s seized by another unwanted urge to dry her off and squirrel her away somewhere no one else will find her. He’s already concerned someone will notice how brightly she glows and try to snatch her away.

“I’m hoping we can work something out,” he calls.

“What d’you mean? I’m not doing anything—I don’t do what the other girls do.”

Obviously. Kylo is no stranger to paying for sex and he wouldn’t spend a dime on this little brat.

He holds out his burned hand, wincing as rain irritates his raw skin. Rey covers her forearm protectively and glares at his palm for a minute before her eyes flicker up to his again.

“You _burned_ me,” she hisses.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She teeters back a step and her lower lip quivers. Don’t run. Don’t want to chase.

“What’re you gonna do if I say no?” she asks. The bravado fades from her tone and she sounds much more like a frightened teenage girl.

He tries not to follow her. Now she might be crying but it’s hard to tell with the rain falling.

“I don’t know,” Kylo admits. “Keep following you until I’m Iced, I suppose.”

“Just leave me alone!”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Yes you _can_!”

Light flares and rage floods him before he can blink. His eyes widen as fire sparks in his veins, jolting into his fingertips and toes where he hasn’t felt heat in a very long time. His wristband hysterically alarms from the temperature change and his head spins—does she have any idea what she’s doing to him?

Rey is gone by the time he gets a hold of himself, but she’s unwittingly made herself easier to find. Her presence grows bit by bit each time she has a strong flare of emotion, searing herself on his soul and deepening the bond.

Kylo flexes his fingers and watches the color slowly fading from them. Poor thing.

—•—

Painful as it is, Kylo decides the best course of action is to wait for Rey to come to him. Can’t kidnap her off the street— _still_ —and if he continues to follow her around the city, she’ll just get more anxious.

He spends the first few days trying to figure out her sleeping schedule: does she rest during the day to avoid the sun, or at night so she can stay cool? She seems to be in constant motion that twists in his gut, spinning him into an anxious episode or two—but she goes to sleep around the time he does, opting to avoid the hottest part of the day that he relies on to keep from locking up.

It’s tedious. Painful. More than once Kylo considers paying Unkar to drag the girl to his doorstep instead of watching his body temperature gradually dip back into the low seventies. Not _quite_ as low, but… uncomfortable. Frustrating.

Then when Rey finally risks a few hours of sleep he debates hunting her down while she’s vulnerable. He can _feel_ her gentle drift into unconsciousness; the way the heat fades as she slows and rests. It’s a bit like his heart is skipping a beat: harmless, ultimately, but nerve-wracking while it’s happening.

On the fifth day he waits until she’s awake, heralded by a languid drizzle of warmth in his chest, before going out to buy some groceries. Typically his housekeeper does those tedious things but… Rey may come looking for him. Hopefully she’s curious.

The sun is shining so he goes for a walk down the couple blocks to the grocery store on the corner, hypervigilant for any sign of his valence. She’s awake. Moving. It seems she’s wandering in closer, maybe beginning to feel the discomfort of being separated. Curious, at least. _Hopefully_ she’s curious.

His phone rings halfway there.

“Find her yet?”

Kylo rolls his eyes and skirts a short old woman with a push cart. Rose. She must be bored.

“I’m letting her come to me,” he replies tersely.

“Ha! Yeah right.” Rose snorts and keeps laughing. “I can come over and help. Maybe she’ll be less nervous if she sees you hanging around another Warm.”

“Doubt it.”

“You _never_ like my ideas.”

“They’re always bad.”

Rose laughs again, brushing off his snide comments like she always does. She’s a few years older than Rey, still an undergrad wasting time studying psychology. Tolerable, unless she has a spike, which is common in Warm women her age.

“So you’re just waiting?” she asks.

“I can’t keep following her. She’s a homeless teenage girl and I’m a _very_ grown man—I’m sure it’s confusing and upsetting.” Kylo clenches his jaw as he enters the grocery store, scanning the aisles. “And I fucking marked her. Fucking stupid.”

“Yup. Should’ve waited until you had some time to adjust. Idiot.”

“Helpful as ever, Tico.”

“Everyone knows that’ll happen if you move too fast, _Ren_. Hux didn’t go grabbing at me when we met…”

She’s still talking, but Kylo’s gaze falls upon a welcome sight, and Rose’s voice fades.

Rey is sitting on a bench next to a bubblegum machine, obnoxiously chewing a piece and glaring at him with her arms crossed. Her eyes have dark circles under them and her lower eyelid twitches but she doesn’t get up and run. She glowers—glows.

“Gotta go,” Kylo mutters.

“Did you find her?! I want to say hi!”

He hangs up, keeping his eyes trained on Rey. She scowls deeper, wrinkling her nose and the speckled freckles on her cheeks, but still doesn’t move. Her worn sneaker bounces on the cracked green linoleum floor. People stare.

“I’m hungry,” she says. Her green eyes glow as they study him, suspicious and guarded.

“Do you want to pick something out?”

“Do I have to have sex with you?”

A woman walking past pauses to give Kylo a sideways glance. He feigns a laugh and she keeps moving, frowning and shaking her head, and he ambles closer to Rey. He glances around and shakes his head.

“No, you don’t have to do anything like that—and please don’t say it out loud.”

“Are you sure?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he snaps, “I’m sure. We can discuss more at my home if you’d like to pick out something to eat and come with me.”

Rey’s round jaw shifts as she considers the offer. She must be able to feel him pulling her to some degree now or she wouldn’t have come to him. It’s satisfying. He’s sinking under her skin like she is under his.

She stands and tugs her hood further over her face. It doesn’t do much to conceal her and light still dances across the cramped, dark grocery store.

“I’m not doing anything funny,” she insists again. She rubs her nose and huffs. “I’m serious.”

“I’m more than capable of hiring prostitutes my own age.”

Buzzing heat skitters up his throat; a flicker of shyness and embarrassment. Rey huffs and puffs and says ‘whatever’ like teenagers do. If she wants to be obnoxious, he’s happy to be obnoxious in return. And he won’t be sacrificing his bi-weekly drug-addled sex for her sake, valence or not.

Rey avoids his eyes and nods to the aisles. “Fine. I want mac and cheese.”

“…Excuse me?”

“Mac and cheese,” she repeats, raising her eyebrows like she’s talking to an idiot. “And I want the name brand. Not the cheap stuff.”

“It’s all fucking cheap. It’s processed shit in a box.”

She sniffs. “Well that’s what I want.” Pause. “And I want Pepsi. _Not_ the store brand.”

Kylo stares down at her strange satisfied smirk and slowly raises his eyebrows. How much does he typically pay to wine and dine a woman? Three hundred? Usually _before_ he’s already paid them for the night, because he likes the set up for the sex almost as much as the actual fucking.

Rey shrugs and points and struts off, and he watches her ratty Aeropostale hoodie disappear down the chip and pasta aisle. Fuck. Fine. He’s going to eat fucking mac and cheese for dinner like some kind of wild fucking animal.

“Fucking ridiculous,” he mutters. The cashier catches his eye and he plants a fake smile. “My… daughter.”

The cashier nods slowly. Probably going to call the cops as soon as they leave.

Kylo wanders down the aisle, peering over his shoulder to see if anyone else is watching. Rey already has her skinny arms full of pasta and is struggling with a package of Oreos, tongue sticking out from concentrating.

He snatches it. “Hurry up. People are suspicious and I said you’re my daughter.”

“Gross.” She makes a face but turns to go, giving one more longing look at the cookies. “Can I get Twinkies, please?”

“I don’t fucking care.”

Rey breaks into a wide smile and hurriedly grabs a box of the disgusting things. Vile. She eats like a raccoon.

Her eyes keep traveling the aisles while the cashier rings up the few things, glancing between them, obviously noticing Kylo is an adult and Rey is not. Kylo drums his fingers on the worn blue counter and whistles when Rey starts to wander off toward the next random thing she’s craving.

She comes back, bouncing on her heels. “You can buy all this stuff?”

“I’m a brain surgeon. I can buy whatever I want.”

“That’s a _real thing_?”

He rolls his eyes and starts to take out a credit card, but uses cash instead. The cashier politely accepts but is still watching them. Stop fucking staring.

“Yes it’s a real thing,” Kylo sighs, already exhausted.

“Guess that’s how you afford hookers, huh?”

The cashier’s eyebrows raise well into his receding hairline. Kylo barks an awkward laugh and pretends to shrug it off until he can turn to shoot Rey a venomous glare. She shrugs and brightens when she’s handed a bag full of her raccoon food.

The cashier is on the phone as soon as they leave. Kylo glances over his shoulder and begins to snap at his Warm girl for acting like a fucking moron. The sun is sinking and she casts a pale yellow glow along the sidewalk that gently drives people from their path, and she’s cradling the 2-liter of Pepsi in her arms like it’s an infant.

She’s smiling in a way that makes him hesitant to snap at her at all, and her eyes are watery like she’s about to cry. He presses his lips into a thin line and returns his gaze to the street.

Fine. As long as she doesn’t start blubbering.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gentle reminder again that this is not a fluffy fic

The housekeeper, Mitaka, is thankfully nowhere to be seen when Kylo arrives home with his new ward. Going to be difficult to explain away a teenage girl living in the house but… maybe she’s a niece. That’s a simple enough excuse.

Rey trots inside with her bottle of Pepsi and does a loose turn, wide green eyes slowly fading back to hazel. She kicks off her worn sneakers as an afterthought, walking straight through the kitchen to the living room overlooking the city. It’s still broad daylight. Typically he’s asleep around this time.

“Wow,” Rey calls. “Fancy.”

“Keep your hands off the windows.” Kylo locks the door and sets the junk food on the island. “Unless you’d like to wash them.”

She’s too busy gently cradling her soda to do that, anyway. Light dances along the furniture and up the shadowy corners as she paces before the windows calling out the different landmarks she sees. Albany isn’t a particularly large city.

“Oh—is that the Egg?!” she squawks. Leans on her tiptoes. “I’ve never been inside.”

“Come here and sit.”

“Can we see it sometime? Unkar never lets me go anywhere fun.”

“Rey. _Now_.”

His Warm girl turns with an irritated glare on her round face, throwing bright light throughout the kitchen that reflects off the stainless steel. Jagged light cuts across his clothes and he’s blinded for a split second, wincing. Fuck.

But she stomps over and sits at the island. Her hood comes up and she crosses her arms over her chest, all pissed off teenager. Kylo studies her for a moment before beginning to unpack the groceries, if that’s what they can even be called. Ground rules. He should type something up.

“Do you know what a valence is, Rey?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’m not _stupid_.” She irately pulls down her sleeve to show him her burned forearm. “That’s what you did to me.”

Kylo leans on the counter behind him and glances at his pink palm. Yes—huge misstep. Stupid. She should be more angry and afraid than she is but with living on the street, she’s probably used to keeping those kinds of emotions under control. Valence bonds can’t simply be broken. He’s made a huge mistake.

“…Then you know it’s permanent,” he continues after a beat.

Rey pulls her sleeve down and avoids his eyes with a halfhearted shrug. It’s the most resigned he’s seen her yet and guilt aches in his gut. Huge mistake.

But… being a homeless orphan, she’s certainly in need of things he can provide. It’s a simple arrangement that will be mutually beneficial, even if she won’t be completely free to go off and marry and have children with someone else. She _could_ , but there will always be a painful raw spot where he exists, and the distance will slowly send them spiraling back to becoming Burnt out or Iced.

Kylo watches her and rubs the back of his neck. She’s too young to realize these things. She could leave now and carry on with her life for some time but in the end, this is permanent, and she’ll always be tied to him at the end of a rope.

“I’ll make sure you’re taken care of,” he says stiffly. Waves a hand, averting his eyes so he doesn’t feel so guilty. “School, clothes, food—whatever else.”

“I don’t go to school.” Rey picks at the edge of the island. “I haven’t gone since I was ten.”

“You’re not in high school? Why not?”

“I’m good at stealing so Unkar stopped making me go. I just visit the library with Finn on weekends or whenever I have time.”

An unwanted jealous twinge distracts him. “Finn?”

“My friend. He goes to Saint Pious.” Rey shrugs morosely, keeping her eyes down turned. “He got adopted a couple years ago. His new family is super rich so he gives me food and stuff.”

“They didn’t adopt you?”

Her green eyes flicker to his and she makes a gesture to her entire body. Ah. Maybe Warm or Cold children are less adoptable. More difficult. Her mood is volatile for sure: she’s gone from elated about the apartment to mopey and depressed in less than ten minutes. Poor thing.

Kylo nods, and tries to think of what to say next. She has to go to school. It’s springtime so they’re nearly done but he can’t let her go uneducated.

“I’ll talk to Unkar,” he says. “You should be in school.”

Rey perks up immediately and brightens. “Really?!”

“Yes, I don’t want you—”

“Can I go to Saint Pious with Finn? Maybe?” She hops down from her chair, glowing brightly. “I can help with the tuition if you give me a couple weeks, and I know a lot of people there.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

Somber warmth rushes through into a hot roar of flame that burns down to the tips of Kylo’s toes and the pointed end of his nose. Rey squeals and claps as she hops up and down, quickly spinning out of control the way she always seems to. It’s a miracle she hasn’t Burned out yet.

Kylo hisses. “ _Sit_!”

“I swear I can get money!” she babbles as she sits, squirming in her chair. “I know a good spot to pickpocket where they’re always loaded—”

“What’s the fucking tuition?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Ten… thousand? A year? But—but I can get half at least—”

“I told you I’m going to take care of you,” he snaps, and waves his hand dismissively. “I make that in two weeks, tops. Stop pickpocketing people.”

It stuns Rey to blissful silence. She stares, eyes wide, and the heat dissipates from Kylo’s body.

Her emotions shift violently again—he stiffens when he senses something foreign and powerful slam into his chest like a brick, taking his breath, and her hazel eyes well up with tears. Oh Jesus _Christ_.

“Stop crying!” he snaps.

She doesn’t. Rey bawls, dramatically flopping onto the island and heaving loud sobs that echo through the cold apartment. Kylo grits his teeth and snatches the box of mac and cheese to get it ready, determined not to validate her ridiculous crying. She has to learn how to control herself.

Plus—he can’t touch her. Not only is it inappropriate because of her age but until their temperatures adjust, he could potentially burn her again.

She cries for much longer than necessary and is still sniffling while the pasta boils, watching over the edge of her arm. Kylo hands her a paper towel and she loudly blows her nose.

“You have to slow down,” he snaps. He drums his fingers on his biceps. “You’re going to Burn out.”

She nods, still sniffling and wiping her nose. He glares and drums then snorts and turns back to the pasta. Fine. As long as she’s _aware_.

Mac and cheese is the simplest thing in the world to make and he serves Rey her food in one of his new white soup bowls. She eats quietly and so does he—no sense in going to the trouble of cooking something else entirely. It’ll do.

Her emotions have settled for the most part by the time she’s done eating, which is a fucking relief. Kylo sets the bowls in the sink to let Mitaka deal with them when he comes in the next morning but Rey hops up and helps herself to cleaning them.

“Sorry,” she says, sidling next to him, “lately I feel so…” She shrugs and waves a hand, flippant. “ _Crazy_.”

They’re no more than a foot apart. His palm prickles, heat blazing up his arm and radiating through his sweater, and he simply watches her rinse the bowls out and clean off the forks. An odd urge to _touch_ nearly overcomes him—he stares at the black mark peeking out from under his sleeve and chews his cheek. Don’t. Don’t.

“It’s fine,” he mutters.

“It’s hard sitting still, y’know? Feels like I’ve got bugs in my skin.” She steps back and scans the cabinets for the dishwasher, then brightens. “But I don’t wanna Burn out like mom did.”

“…I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine.” Rey sets the dishes inside the washer and he can’t make out her expression. “She wasn’t a very good mom anyway.”

The bright glow in her skin is dying down from their proximity, gradually swallowing the kitchen in low shadows. It’s already working. She’s cooling—slowing. His own hands have taken on a less corpselike shade of pink they haven’t had in many years.

Kylo glances at Rey as she examines her own thin fingers riddled with bandaids and scars, and another icy stab of guilt distracts him from his small victory. Eighty degrees, at what cost?

“I’ll show you the guest room,” he says, clipped.

She claps and beams and follows him upstairs with an excited skip in her step. He points to his bedroom door, hoping to keep her as far away from it as possible, and she bursts into the guest room when he motions to it. Both bedrooms have their own bathroom and there’s an additional one downstairs. It doesn’t seem very exciting to him.

“My own?!” she chirps on her third lap around the bedroom.

“I wouldn’t expect guests to go traipsing around the house in search of a toilet.”

Rey laughs and peers into the bathroom for the third time. It has a theme matching the bedroom; farmhouse shit. The interior decorator chose all of it.

“The door _slides_ ,” she says, mystified.

“It’s a barn door.”

She nods, sliding the enormous gray door back and forth like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen. Kylo rolls his eyes and leans on the doorframe. At least she isn’t hard to impress.

Rey turns away from it to pace the bedroom again, running her fingertips along the flowery bedspread and furniture. She pauses before the window and parts the curtains to look out, and lapses into silence again. Her skin still gives off a hazy, ethereal glow. Kylo finds he can’t look away.

Her head tilts, fingers idly running down the curtain. Her clothes are much too big. Old. Torn.

“I haven’t had my own room in a long time.”

“…Yes, well.” Kylo clears his throat and shrugs off the door. “You can take a shower if you’d like. Probably _should_.”

She nods but doesn’t respond. That was rude. But she should.

He rolls his neck. “Do you need anything from Unkar? We can go out tomorrow for clothes and whatever else.”

“Just a couple things.”

“Good. Fine. Do you need anything else?”

She shakes her head, still staring out the window. Say something. Be nice. You’re an asshole.

But he opts instead to close the door and leave her alone, oddly overwhelmed by her violent swells of emotion. She should be able to sleep alone. He shouldn’t have to ask even _more_ of her; shouldn’t have to share a bed with a teenage girl.

Kylo flexes his hand, watching the color seeping away. Things will adjust. Just need more time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this should’ve been part of ch 4 sorry LOL I extended the chapter count

“So… you don’t want to meet tonight?”

Kylo holds his phone again his shoulder as he draws his bedroom curtains. Typically he sees an escort on Friday nights—and Tuesday; sometimes Wednesday—but that doesn’t seem appropriate with a teenage girl in the house.

He turns to face the dark room, running a hand through his hair. “My niece is here for the foreseeable future.”

“ _Niece_? Wow. Can’t imagine you around a kid.”

“She’s sixteen,” he snips faster than he’d like. “I’ll call you if and when there’s an opportunity, Bianca.”

She sighs. “Okay, let me know. I was craving that salmon from Verdile’s, though. Maybe I’ll just go alone.” Another sigh, more dramatic. “All alone.”

“Please—allow me to send you something to make up for the inconvenience.”

“Two hundred to my Venmo would definitely ease the pain.”

He rolls his eyes and she thanks him with a drawn out ‘you’ before he hangs up. Fine. Not like he has fucking malpractice insurance to pay. For _brain surgery_.

But it’s for the best, and Bianca is tolerable enough for the couple hours they spend together. It would be a shame to lose her company when she just learned last month that he doesn’t want to hear about her children. Ever. Or see pictures of them.

Kylo sets his phone on the charger and peels back his sheets to climb into bed. He’s sitting on the edge of his mattress when a soft series of knocks comes from the door—tentative, shallow. It makes his pulse quicken, thinking of Rey coming of her own volition to see him. He’s cooling off already.

“Yes?” he calls.

“Um…” Feet shuffle. “I don’t feel well.”

“How so?”

The handle turns and Rey sidles into the bedroom, only wearing a T-shirt that comes halfway down her thighs. Kylo blinks and stares and hardly notices that she’s covered in a sheen of sweat that’s making her hair stick to her forehead. She’s blinding, but he can’t help but stare, a moth drawn to the flame.

She swallows, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “I’m really hot.”

She doesn’t have a bracelet so there’s no way to tell what her actual temperature is, but the way her skin glows bright white isn’t comforting. Wincing, Kylo covers his eyes and points to his bathroom.

“Go—try cold water.”

“I did, and it won’t stop.” Her voice pitches and wobbles like she’s about to cry. “My skin hurts. Everything hurts. Am I Burning—”

“No!” he snaps, sharply getting to his feet. He rubs his eyes and peers at her, growling and shielding his eyes. “It’s just a reaction to our… proximity. Warms will spike. Didn’t you learn in sch—” He hesitates. Fuck. “Just try another shower and eat some ice.”

“I really don’t feel good. I feel really sick.”

 _Fuck_. Kylo rubs his temples, shying away from the bright light that’s making it impossible to think of more solutions. Sometimes this happens in a valence when it first begins and it will stabilize after a few days, but there’s still a possibility she really is Burning out and if that happens…

He grabs the comforter off the bed and quickly wraps her in it so only her lidded green eyes are showing. First he needs to wash her off, though how he’s going to accomplish that is a complete fucking mystery. Can’t touch her or she’ll burn again; can’t _look_ at her because she’s sixteen and it’s abhorrent.

Rey shuffles into his bathroom, sniffling as he turns on the new waterfall shower head. Expensive. Doesn’t feel any better than the regular shower head.

“You’re going to have to sleep with me,” he mutters. He runs a hand under the water to check the temperature. “Rinse off. I’ll find you something more appropriate to wear.”

“I get hot.” Rey lets the comforter fall to the gray tile and is peeling off her shirt before he can blink. “Really _hot_.”

Kylo manages to turn away before he sees anything, thank fucking god, and he stays turned away until he hears the shower door close. He peers over his shoulder to check, face burning. She needs to wear more fucking clothes. Ridiculous.

He paces the bathroom irately while she washes off and sets a towel on the floor so she doesn’t track water everywhere. When the water shuts off he holds out another towel with his fingertips, covering his face, determined not to see a sliver of skin.

“I feel a little better,” she says, taking the towel.

“Yes—you’ll be fine. You’re going to have a more violent reaction at first than I am, but things will stabilize soon.” Hopefully.

“I felt fine up until an hour ago, then I just got really sick. But if it’s normal… I guess it’s okay.”

It could keep happening: random violent spikes on her end, resisting the cold draw of him and the dramatic changes in temperature. But she won’t feel the same dull ache he does when they’re apart—it will come and go in unpredictable waves, or so he’s read. These things are often chaotic.

Kylo gropes along the counter until he finds the door and stalks to his wardrobe. His temperature has shifted somewhat from her proximity and he pauses to stare at his pinkish fingers buried in his matching sets of pajamas. It tingles, sensation his numb hands aren’t used to. Warmth.

“I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

He blinks, reining in his wandering thoughts, and picks out a pair of black pajamas with long sleeves. Good. Keep her _covered._

“I was still awake.” He tosses them pajamas on the bed and covers his eyes again. “I’ll bring you to the mall in the morning for something more appropriate.”

“I can pay you back,” she says. Rustling. Hurry _up_. “I’ll find—”

“You can pay me back by slowing down, going to school, and staying safe. I don’t need or want your money.”

She’s quiet after that. When she mumbles that she’s decent he first risks glancing at her bare feet, and opens his eyes when he sees the hem of her pants. Kylo almost growls when he sees her crying again, but she’s trying to keep her lower lip from quivering and quickly wipes her eyes at his glare. Always with the fucking crying.

He pulls back the sheet. “Fix your collar. The sleeve is sliding off.”

“I’m sorry—” She swallows and tries to pull up the shoulder but it makes the top cave in near her chest, which is much worse than seeing a bare shoulder. “I don’t mean to cry this much, I’m just—I think I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he snaps.

Discussing how she feels sounds worse than getting a tooth pulled without Novocain. He motions to the other side of the bed and Rey climbs in, sitting upright, awkwardly clasping her hands and brushing her hair back.

Kylo finds a pair of socks and gloves as extra insurance—if they touch skin, he’s going to burn her again—and tries to keep his scowl as he joins her in bed. It’s big enough for her to stay two or three feet away from him, but this proximity should make things easier for them. Soon she should be able to sleep in her own bed.

He turns off the light, turning to his side to face the windows. The sooner she’s out of his bed, the better.

Rey is quiet for a while, and her searing heat helps lull him to sleep, like his typical daytime naps. It’s been a long time since he last attempted to sleep without the aid of the sun. They should try sleeping at night—it’s still healthier, Warm or Cold—but if he has to continuously share his bed with her—

Something brushes his upper arm and Kylo’s eyes snap open.

He sits up, seizing Rey’s wrist before he’s fully aware of it, but thankfully her sleeve hangs low enough to protect her skin. Her bright green eyes widen and she yanks back but he holds her firm.

“What are you doing?!” he hisses.

“Sorry—I don’t know what—I don’t know—”

“Don’t _touch me_.” He throws her hand away like it’s a venomous snake. “You are _sixteen years old_. Do not touch me, under any circumstances.”

She nods quickly, shrinking away as he rolls to his side once more. Kylo glares at the window and tries to ignore his racing pulse and the sudden shift in blood flow. No. No. He just needs to set boundaries.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was going to take down this fic and make it an original work that's exclusive to another site, but people were sad and that felt like a big bait and switch, so here i am

“Can I wear this?”

Kylo is leaning on a wall texting back a colleague with a question about simple partial seizures when Rey presents him with a skimpy white dress that leaves very little to the imagination. He has brought her clothes shopping as promised, relieved to get some space between the two of them.

He raises his eyebrows, pausing to give her an incredulous glare. She beams and waves it around.

“I saw it in a magazine,” she says, turning the dress to admire it. “It’s pretty.”

“Your ass will hang out of it.”

He regrets it as soon as he says it, stiffening at her glance. Fuck. Don’t think about her ass.

Rey huffs and hangs it up. “Fine. I’ll just wear a burlap sack, _daddy_.”

She turns away to look at something else and he’s relieved, rubbing his face to hide the faint prickle of heat that creeps into it. Don’t think about _that_ , either. Jesus Christ.

He resumes texting his prior intern and watches Rey wander amongst the steel racks of clothes, running her fingers across them. He’s never stepped foot in a Forever 21 in his entire life and the looks he’s getting are a good indication that he never should have. It’s too bright, the music is too fucking loud, and he has at least a decade on most of the girls scurrying around the racks of cheap clothes.

But Rey _insisted._ She always wanted to come here because all her friends do, and he doesn’t want her to feel excluded.

He slips his phone in his pocket and crosses his arms, shrugging off the wall to follow her around a corner. Rey turns quickly, narrowing her eyes.

“Can I have some space?” she snaps.

“No.”

Her cheeks puff out as she swells up indignantly. Mood swing. Common. He feels the rapid shift and spike of anger like a jolt of electricity.

“Why don’t we just go to Ann Taylor?!” Rey folds her arms to match him and her rage abruptly ices over, tears welling up in her eyes. “So you can dress me how _you_ want—like some old, frumpy—”

Then she bursts into tears.

Thankfully they’re around the side of a wall so no one can see her tantrum. Kylo doesn’t react, jaw shifting as he absorbs the majority of her turbulent emotions like a sponge, only stirred to mild pity. It’s his fault, after all. He marked her, and now she’s even _more_ unstable. For the time being.

Rey sobs for a handful of minutes before her mood improves. She sniffles and wipes her eyes with a trembling hand, avoiding his gaze. That’s fine. She’s likely embarrassed. He’ll wait for her to speak.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. Sniffles. “I’m being ungrateful.”

Good girl.

Kylo shrugs. “You can wear whatever you want that doesn’t have your…” He motions to his chest. “ _Bits_ hanging out.”

She nods, wringing her hands and turning away to pick a T-shirt off the closest rack. She holds it up to her small frame and his heart skips a beat when he meets her watery hazel eyes. Fuck. Let her get the stupid fucking dress. She just wants to fit in with her friends, you prick.

He grits his teeth and waves a hand. “You can get the fucking dress. Wear some fucking leggings with it.”

Rey brightens and claps her hands. She hurries off to get it, leaving him rubbing his mouth, glowering at the open ceiling. He shouldn’t let her dress like that, should he? If he were her parent he wouldn’t, but he isn’t exactly filling that role.

What role _is_ he filling?

His Warm girl comes back with her dress and does nothing but gab about it for the rest of the shopping trip. She picks some other shit, including panties and bras that he does his best not to look at, and brings him to a fitting room to try it all on.

Kylo waits outside, scowling at the women that walk by and stare at him. Rey gabs.

“Bazine goes to school with Finn and she wears these really cute skirts from a designer store but I don’t want designer clothes because I’ll just spill something on them, so these are much better…”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. Has she taken a breath yet? Will she? Maybe she’ll faint.

“Can you zip me?”

“ _No_.”

Rey whines.

“Please? I can’t reach.”

“Then you can’t get it. I’m not going to zip it up every time you wear it.”

She whines louder and longer and pleads through the door. Kylo leans his head back on the cool wood and closes his eyes. Boundaries.

“We have to have some _boundaries_ , Rey,” he says. “I’m not your… parent.”

“Then what are you?”

“…Your friend.”

“Friends still help friends try clothes on—and they can’t tell their friends what to wear.”

He rolls his eyes. No. Not doing it.

But his ignoring her triggers irritation that spikes up to anger in the blink of an eye. He shouldn’t give her a response but he doesn’t want another temper tantrum that will attract attention. Kylo turns and knocks on the door, hoping to head off her meltdown before it starts.

“I’ll help,” he says tersely, opening the door, “but just this once.”

Rey is facing the mirror and already breaking down into tears again. Her white dress is open halfway down her thin back, giving him an eyeful of her bumpy spine and her worn white bra strap down to the hem of her green panties. Kylo bites inside his cheek and looks up and away.

“It’s too _big_!” she bawls. She turns, quickly shrugging out of the dress so it pools to the concrete floor. “It’s all too _big_!”

“Rey—” He covers his eyes. Blood pounds. “Put it back on so I can see.”

“Why?! It’s too fucking _big_!”

Her emotions ramp up higher and faster than before and threaten to explode into something much worse than a tantrum. It burns an agonizing line up Kylo’s spine and he realizes belatedly that he has very little control over this teenage girl half his size.

He grabs her—hesitant at first, then rougher when she resists. Rey bawls as she’s yanked into his embrace and he tries not to touch her bare skin but there is little else _for_ him to touch. She shouldn’t burn. Hopefully.

“Shh, shh,” Kylo soothes, hugging her to his chest, “it’s okay—it’s okay.”

Rey blazes white hot for a second. His pulse races and his embrace tightens, waiting for the explosion.

Then she dies out completely.

She goes slack, limp in his arms, and he fears he’s done something terribly wrong—but there’s a spark and she comes back, muted, drowsy and disoriented. She moans into his chest and her thin fingers curl around his shirt, squeezing. It’s amazing. _She’s_ amazing, like a star stuffed inside a human body.

Heat coils across his skin: he’s limber, alert; practically orgiastic. His arms are wrapped around her middle and her slight frame is pressed up against his, hard belly near his groin. Kylo buries his face in her soft hair and pulls her closer, shifting his hips. He’s hard. He shouldn’t be. Not with her.

But Rey squirms a bit and makes soft confused sounds and he thinks he much he’d like to listen to it home in their bed, coiled around her. Her emotions are a sleepy, hazy, fuzzy bundle that he would like to unhinge his jaw and consume—

A sharp knock. He blinks, vaguely aware that he’s slowly grinding his cock against her stomach. Rey whimpers, nuzzling into his chest.

“Everything okay?” someone asks.

Kylo clears his throat and nods. He doesn’t want to let go.

“Fine,” he rasps.

“…We usually don’t allow men into the fitting rooms,” the person continues. “Are you her dad or something?”

 _Dad_. No. Absolutely not.

Kylo shakes his head, shame replacing the euphoria. He gently disentangles from Rey, now rubbing her eyes and sniffling pitifully. She’s tired. He should bring her home and put her to bed.

He grimaces. “She’s just getting dressed. We’ll be right out.”

“Okay.” Pause. “I’ll wait.”

Fucker. Kylo finds her outfit scattered around the dressing room and kneels to help her step into her jeans, then buttons them when she struggles to. He pulls on her shirt over her head and frees her hair from the collar. Good. That’s fine.

He opens the fitting room door and finds the employee staring at him with his arms crossed. He smacks his gum.

Kylo motions to the room. “We’ll take all of that shit, and—” He circles back to scoop the dress off the floor, holding it on the tip of his pinkie. “This in an extra small.”

“We don’t have that size in stock,” he says, folding her arms.

Kylo gently takes Rey’s hand, pulse pounding at the touch, and shoves the rumpled dress into the much shorter man’s chest. He shrinks back.

“Then order it,” Kylo hisses.

The employee nods curtly and stalks off with the dress. Kylo glares at his back before deciding to go back and collect the other clothes himself.

Rey doesn’t say much. She’s quiet while they cash out and quiet on the drive home.

It’s a bit concerning. Kylo watches her when they arrive back home, setting her bags on the floor. She’s never been so subdued. Hopefully there isn’t any permanent damage.

“You should rest,” he says. He locks the front door. “I’ll wake you up for dinner.”

Rey nods, rubbing her eyes. He didn’t burn her, thank god. Not sure why. Something must be shifting but these things can be difficult to predict.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. Her voice is barely a whisper, wispy and demure. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.” Kylo rubs his chest to quell the odd tightness there. “I’m here to take care of you.”

She nods again. He tries to distract himself—Mitaka made risotto but perhaps he’ll cook something else just to keep from thinking about Rey.

She shuffles upstairs without another word, and Kylo still can’t resist watching her go. He stares and mutters a curse and tries to forget her warm skin on his forearms and her sarcastic ‘ _thanks daddy_ ’ but they swirl around in his head anyway.

He takes down a clean pan and starts scrubbing it. So much for fucking boundaries.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 👀🍿

Rey hides in her bedroom for the rest of the night. Kylo attempts to bring her dinner but she doesn’t respond to his knocking or cajoling, and intruding will only make her more upset.

Rose agrees to come by the following morning and watch Rey while he fetches her things from Unkar. It’s better that she doesn’t see her foster father and she may benefit from having time alone with another Warm. Bonding and whatever else.

Rey is still hiding in her bedroom when Rose arrives around ten AM with a cookie cake and a bag full of random shit: ice cream sandwiches, coloring books, nail polish, gum. Nothing appropriate for breakfast, which Rey still hasn’t eaten. Along with dinner.

“She’s sixteen,” Kylo snaps. “I don’t think she wants to _color_.”

“So? Coloring is fun, crabby-ass.” Rose rolls her eyes and stocks her snacks in the freezer. “No wonder she’s hiding. Went from one rude miserable father figure to another.”

He clenches his jaw and waves her off. Yes. Father figure. Yesterday in the fitting room was a mistake—all hormones and shit. The body sometimes betrays the mind.

Kylo grabs his coat. “I tried to tell her you were coming but she’s been in her bedroom all night since we got home. She has some clothes from our shopping trip in the bags.”

“Okay. I’ll tempt her with treats.”

“Fine. Make sure she eats real food, too.”

Rose rolls her eyes and points at him in an accusing way when something moves at the edge of the kitchen.

Rey is clinging to the wide entryway. Her hair is a mess, carelessly thrown in a ponytail, and she’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday, but she’s watching Rose, clearly interested by her. It’s a relief to see her up and moving. Her spikes and outburst yesterday were concerning and even _more_ concerning is the weak glow her skin exudes.

That’s likely his fault. He’s already draining her like some undead thing; dragging her down into the cold mire.

But his guilt is short-lived. Rose shoves him toward the door and he staggers, huffing and glaring at her wide smile. Rude.

“Hey, Rey,” she says. “He was just leaving. I’m Rose and I’m a Warm, too. I’m Kylo’s friend—unfortunately.”

That draws a smile from Rey. Hard to say it doesn’t sting. Kylo pauses at the doorway, fiddling with his keys. He needs to say something before he leaves. She’s confused and upset—what if she noticed his… _arousal_? She isn’t a doctor; she doesn’t understand that bodies are capable of purely physical responses that don’t always mean what one might think.

He clears his throat. Rose shoots him a glare, approaching Rey like she’s a doe ready to bolt from the slightest disturbance.

“I’ll be back,” he says after a beat. “Just running some errands. Do you need anything while I’m out, Rey?”

She shakes her head and her gaze wanders to the wall she’s picking at. Rose raises her eyebrows and sweeps her hand, shooing him from his own home.

The door slams shut behind him and voices pick up inside: Rose introduces herself again and Rey does the same. He lingers, rubbing his thumb along his key fob. Good. At least she’s somewhat comfortable.

—•—

Unkar is as unpleasant and repulsive as ever. He mutters his complaints about Rey being ‘stolen’ and is slow to escort Kylo to the cramped apartment where she spent her days sleeping.

“Took my best pickpocket,” Unkar grunts. “Didn’t pay me nothin’ for my troubles, neither.”

Warm women are asleep on the floor in torn sleeping bags. Kylo gingerly steps around them as he makes his way through the dilapidated old building, hands in his pockets. He avoids their doleful stares as best he can but one reaches out and brushes his pant leg with her spindly fingers and he meets her misty green eyes. Her stare is vacant, lips parted.

His stomach turns at her resemblance to Rey. Her lying on a dirty floor moaning in pain is not something he would prefer to think about.

Unkar brings him to a corner room with a few older women sitting on two cots on either side. One pulls her thin blonde hair in a bun atop her head and glares at Kylo with bright green eyes just like the others. Her slouchy sweater shows off half her arm and the side of her breast, and Kylo quickly averts his eyes.

“She don’t have much,” Unkar says. He opens a dresser and pulls out a bundle of wrapped clothes, which he shoves in Kylo’s arms. “All I got.”

“This the one that took Rey?”

The blonde woman doesn’t flinch when Kylo glances her way. She raises her eyebrows, letting her thin arms fall into her lap with a pronounced _thump_. The others watch him, each in a different phase of Burning out: the blonde is particularly bright, so much so that he has to shield his eyes. She’s close. Closer than Rey.

“Rey chose to live with me,” Kylo replies.

“What d’you want with a sixteen-year-old Warm girl?” The woman blinks imploringly, holding up her hands. “All good things, Daddy Warbucks?”

He clenches his jaw as the Warm women whisper amongst themselves. He isn’t going to dignify that with a response. Rey has more of a future with him than she ever would wasting away in this place—and his supporting her isn’t reliant upon sex. Never will be. He would never take advantage of a teenager, or any woman. Or Rey.

Kylo leaves without saying another word. They can think what they want.

—•—

Laughter and the sound of a movie greet Kylo when he comes home after a few hours in the park. He shuts the door and scowls at the mess on the island: scattered coloring pencils, dirty plates with food still sitting on them, and Rose has helped herself to a bottle of his favorite vintage wine. Lovely.

He glances out into the living room. “Rey? Rose?”

They’re watching a romance movie, maybe—he glimpses a woman kissing a man as Rey peeks around the edge of the couch, green eyes bright and curious. She’s dressed and showered; wearing one of the outfits he bought her yesterday. Good. Hopefully she ate something of substance.

She looks back and Rose appears beside her with her glass of wine. She takes a dainty sip while he glares and they both giggle at his expense.

“We’re watching _The Notebook_ ,” Rose calls.

“Sounds awful.” Kylo ambles to the living room and squints at the television screen, cradling Rey’s belongings. “Rey—these are yours.”

Rey brightens and accepts them. She passes him by and leans up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek before he can blink, then she dances away, and it takes Kylo a long minute to realize she smells like wine.

He waits until her bedroom door shuts. “You gave her _alcohol_?!”

“She had like half a glass,” Rose says, rolling her eyes and taking another drink. “She needed the boost—really exhausted from yesterday.”

“So you gave her _alcohol_?!” Kylo hisses.

“ _You_ should’ve brought her to the hospital.” Rose turns and points up the stairs, dark eyes flickering green. “She told me all about her mood swings yesterday and _you_ should know better than to let it go. Skirting really close to Burning out. That’s why she was so exhausted, and it’s a good thing I came over here and lit her up with sugar. Prick.”

Fuck. Kylo rubs his face and pinches the bridge of his nose, irritated with Rose and himself. This is so goddamn confusing. Most books said it would be better to let her discharge all the energy but maybe Rose is right—she would know, being Warm and all. Maybe Rey is getting worse.

He sits on the arm of the couch, glancing over his shoulder to check for Rey before speaking. “…Thank you.”

Rose sweeps out her glass. “You’re _welcome_.” She shakes her head and resumes watching the movie, eyes still dancing with green light. “Hux might be able to help but he’s better with Colds. I had the same mood swings and temperature fluctuations when I was a teenager and I needed meds.”

Kylo nods, gazing at the television screen. He should bring Rey to see a specialist but the thought of letting another Cold touch her is physically repulsive. Warm doctors are few and far between, and a Cold might only serve to make Rey even more anxious. She can barely tolerate _him._

“I’ll look into it,” he says.

Rey comes trotting downstairs and plops beside Rose in the middle of the couch. She’s chewing gum, feet up on the expensive coffee table, and he should tell her to sit up straight and spit the gum out before it winds up between the cushions.

But she pats the spot beside her and Kylo decides to take the invitation. He sits, and she twists to stretch her long legs across his lap, leaning on Rose so she can touch her hair. He stares at the TV instead of Rey’s glowing tan legs and keeps an arm over the back of the couch and the other on the armrest. This is fine. Just watching a movie.

After a handful of minutes Rose dozes off. Kylo barely saves the wine glass before it tilts and spills all over the floor, and as he leans forward to set it on the coffee table, Rey sleepily changes position.

He leans back, resuming his own position just as she paws her way along his thigh. Her fingers hook around his belt so she can wedge herself under his arm, head lolling on his chest, and she hooks her knee over his thigh. It seems extremely uncomfortable but she immediately passes out regardless, snoring softly. Warm. Very warm.

Kylo swallows. Rey’s heat gradually melts through him, small fingers twitching on his stomach in an innocuous way that still makes his gut clench. He attempts a casual scratch of his jaw and _tries_ to watch the movie but it’s fucking impossible; she’s so warm and pliant and irresistible. Her leg is precariously close to his crotch and the longer she sleeps, the duller it grows, soon matching the flushed tone his own skin takes on.

It pleases him, the way the natural balance occurs; the way she melds together with him. He glances at Rose before sliding his arm from the back of the couch to wrap around Rey’s narrow shoulders, and she sighs in her sleep, nuzzling closer to him. Her knee shifts up an inch and nudges his cock.

Fuck. He winces, adjusting her leg just as Rose lifts her head and blearily looks around. He quickly returns to the armrest.

She rubs her eyes, yawning. “She’s tired, huh?”

Kylo nods. Rose pouts her lower lip and pats his arm before she gets up to leave. Rey doesn’t move. She’s breathing and twitching and her leg shifts again, drawing up his thigh. No—no—

Another touch, this time to his right shoulder. He startles, coughing when Rose laughs.

“Relax,” she says. “She’s a kid, not a cobra. I’ll have Hux find someone for her to see.”

Then she leaves. The door opens and shuts and Kylo finds himself unable to move, frozen in fear that Rey will wake up and release she accidentally stimulated him. Very compromising position. He doesn’t _want_ to wake her and disturb her nap but—

He grits his teeth as her knee rolls across his cock. It isn’t painful, just… uncomfortable, and she’s fast asleep and unaware of it.

“Rey,” he croaks. He pats her upper arm. “Let me bring you to your room.”

She grunts. Always so stubborn.

Kylo shakes her gently, huffing an annoyed sigh when she grunts and refuses to move. He sits upright with his arm around her back so she doesn’t tumble off the couch and her fingers are suddenly pawing at his shirt, breaths lilting into whines. Her breath is hot on his neck and his insides knot.

Lips brush, feather-light. He stops breathing, frozen while she draws her soft mouth along his throat, then she kisses him, once then twice like a hummingbird. It makes his skin buzz like a live wire is running through it, excitement and electricity to the tips of his fingers and toes. She keeps kissing him in the same shy, curious way, and her leg pushes. She’s trying to climb in his lap and he would like nothing more than to let her.

“Rey.” Kylo grabs her thigh as it slides across his. “Rey—”

She isn’t showing any signs of stopping. He pushes her off him to the cushions, stumbling to his feet and bumping into the coffee table in his haste to escape. His heart pounds as he stares at her lying on her back, hazel eyes vacant, licking her lips. Her long legs unfurl and curl again and her lower lip quivers.

“Daddy?” she bleats. She twists onto her side, breaking down into heaving sobs. “Help me—please help me—”

It occurs to him that she needs ‘help’ with something he can’t provide. Kylo watches her wail and flexes his hands. That can’t be a requirement. They should be able to cohabitate without making anything physical.

She needs to see a doctor. Medication will help.

He tries to stay calm but finds it much more difficult with her warmth seeping in his skin. Letting her cry it out in the mall had severe consequences, but what the fuck else is he supposed to do? Race her to the hospital? Is it that severe? And what will his colleagues think when he shows up with a spiking Warm girl in his arms, delirious and babbling and calling him Daddy?

Kylo approaches, drawing his hand along the arm of the couch as an anchor. She’ll be fine. She just needs to cool down.

“Shh… shh,” he soothes. He stops at her feet, staring at her head buried in the cushions. “I know. Just take deep breaths.”

Rey pulls her red face free, all streaked with tears and glowing bright, and she sucks in a couple shaky deep breaths. She’s trembling and hiccuping and he’s seized by a powerful urge to wrap her up in his arms. Bad idea.

“I’m… I’m so confused. I’m so hot.” She rolls on her back, shirt riding up over her flat stomach, and Kylo doesn’t bother looking away.

“You should take a shower and lie down, Rey.”

Light flares and she sits bolt upright, striking like the cobra Rose insisted she wasn’t. She crawls so quickly to the end of the couch that Kylo can’t respond quick enough—she seizes the front of his shirt in her fists, teeth bared, and he lets her drag him in a foot. He’s mesmerized, engulfed in her glow, now taken by an urge to smother it.

“I don’t _want_ to lie down!” she spits. “I’m sick of lying down!”

He swallows, nodding, gazing into the twisting pools of green; something alien and celestial bound to the earth.

“Okay,” he acquiesces. “Okay.” He touches her wrists and her expression softens as a shiver passes through her. “How can I help you relax?”

Rey searches his face for a long minute and her bravery fades away as quickly as it came. She blushes a strong red and shrinks back, dulling, muted and shy.

She examines her hands in the ensuing quiet. He knows what she wants—at her age and stage of development, it’s probably sexual release. Thankfully she’s too inexperienced and shy to ask for it.

Kylo stares, drumming his fingers on the arm of the couch. Far more concerning: he wouldn’t refuse her if she did.

It burns in the base of his skull, shameful and taboo and despicable, but his eyes wander up her long legs anyway; her knobby spine flickers in his memory. He drums his fingers faster and works his jaw from side to side. Maybe they both need help. He certainly does.

Rey stands, mumbling an excuse before she flits away. He remains there gazing at the imprint of her in the cushion until it fades, then he remains there a little longer. For once his ability to stay immobile for long periods of time is a blessing.

Fingers drum. He may do something unforgivable if he moves.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HHOHOHOHO

Painful stiffness plagues Kylo within several hours of lying down for his afternoon rest.

He manages to sit up and check his watch—seventy degrees—and he breathes out a muffled curse. Night is falling, the best time for both himself and Rey to be awake, and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to get out of bed. _Fuck_. Hopefully she doesn’t fucking run away or do something equally stupid.

Once upright he freezes again, too slow to get out of bed before his muscles lock. Kylo grits his teeth and winces in pain. Should call Hux. He can prescribe something else. There has to be another medication.

He forces his fingers to unfurl and spits a curse. There isn’t. Any day now—he’ll never be able to move again. Rey will probably dance on his grave.

After several agonizing minutes Kylo pries himself out of bed and staggers down the hallway. His feet drag with a muffled shuffle past Rey’s bedroom and down to the kitchen. Movement helps. A hot bath would be ideal but if he crouches he might not be able to straighten up again without assistance, and Rey certainly won’t be willing to help.

He drags himself to the kitchen sink and starts the hot water with his wrist. It will suffice for now. Shouldn’t disturb Rey—not when she’s already upset.

Water rushes down the drain. Kylo stares at it, tongue too stiff even to roll inside his cheek. He’s supposed to have more time than this. This isn’t supposed to be the end of the line. Not yet.

The floor creaks behind him, but before he can turn, there is a violent rush of heat and a thin pair of arms thrown around his middle.

Kylo exhales sharply in shock, eyes widening. Rey is blistering hot; much better than any hot water could be, and his muscles and joints defrost in the several seconds it takes for him to realize what’s happening. She tightens her embrace, hugging him from behind, and she gives a soft, satisfied sigh.

Neither speaks. Words feel unnecessary and awkward, and Kylo holds his tongue even when it thaws.

Rey withdraws after several minutes. Blood pounds through Kylo’s skull; the dramatic shift in temperature seems to be bringing on a migraine but that’s easily solved with Excedrin. He passes a hand through his hair, trying not to pause and marvel at his newfound flexibility. It’s been a very long time since he was this limber. Years.

Rey has her arms crossed and avoids his eyes. She studies her feet.

“Thank you,” Kylo says after more strained silence.

“Yep.” She shrugs, not looking up. “I could feel it. From my room. Felt really bad.” Her green eyes wander up to his, duller, drained of their energy. “You’re close too?”

“…Yes,” he admits. “Months, maybe.”

Rey nods, searching his face before his eyes drop again. She twirls her toe on the floor.

“Sorry about earlier,” she mumbles.

“It’s fine. Rose is going to help me find a doctor to see you.” Kylo hesitates. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring you sooner.”

“It’s okay. Thanks for bringing me at all.”

“Sure.”

They drift off into silence. Rey has dimmed dramatically; it’s evident that the temperature shift has tempered her violent mood swing. And Kylo feels a deep ache in his chest that could be guilt or excitement or something else entirely; he doesn’t care to investigate. Best to chalk it up to guilt.

He rubs his nose. “Are you hungry? Did Rose feed you anything?”

“Yeah. She was nice.”

“Tolerable enough.”

Rey rolls her eyes.

“Can I hang out with her again?” she asks. “I want to ask her more stuff.”

“Sure. I’m sure she won’t mind if you text or call, too.”

Rey nods and takes out her phone from inside her pajama top. Kylo grits his teeth and looks away as quickly as he can, thoughts already wandering back to her in his lap on the couch. No. No.

“Oh—it’s kind of late.” Rey glances at the time on the stove: nine o’clock. “I’ll just text her tomorrow.”

“Good idea.”

“So should we go to bed together?”

Kylo’s newfound body heat burns in his cheeks. He rubs them to conceal it. “Excuse me?”

Rey stuffs her phone in her shirt again and he huffs to show his annoyance. She doesn’t care.

“Well you get all frozen and I get hot and crazy. Shouldn’t we sleep in the same bed?”

“Absolutely not. That is inappro—”

“I don’t want to explode into flames and _you_ don’t want to turn into a statue so what’s the big deal? I won’t even touch you. You’re annoying.”

Kylo clenches his jaw. “ _I’m_ annoying?”

“Extremely.” Rey raises her eyebrows. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”

She breaks into a smug smile before she leaves, taking the stairs up to the second floor two at a time. Kylo glares after her and mutters as he turns to shut off the water in the sink. _Him_ , annoying. It’s must be very annoying having new clothes and being enrolled in a private school and living in a clean, safe home.

He follows Rey upstairs, pausing once or twice to pace with a hand on his hip. The increase in temperature makes it difficult to think straight—he’s around ninety-two right now, almost normal—and his gut emotion draws him in toward her bedroom. It makes sense that they sleep together. They don’t need to touch. Their proximity should work fine.

Kylo flexes his fingers. It would be nice to feel this way all the time rather than only for brief spans when Rey is nearby. The more time they spend together, the longer the effect will gradually become. There will come a time where they can be apart for enough hours for him to return to work.

He proceeds down the hall, passing his hand over the back of his neck and rolling it. No one has to know they’re sleeping in the same bed.

Rey pops out of her bedroom with a pillow under her arm. She closes the door behind her, glowing faintly in the darkness, green eyes bright and alien.

“Your bed is bigger,” she says.

Kylo twists his neck again. He’s also had escorts in his bed. Seems inappropriate for Rey to sleep there, but her bed is too small and he’ll be forced to lie closer to her—which is worse.

“Fine,” he mutters.

She beams and follows him to his bedroom.

Kylo opens and the door and Rey brushes past him, leaping into his bed with her pillow hugged to her chest. She bounces as he shuts the door.

“Don’t say anything about this,” he snaps. “Not to Rose or your friends or—”

“You think I want people to _know_ I’m sleeping with you?” Rey laughs, swaying her knobby knees from side to side, lying flat on her back. “No thanks.”

“Fine.”

He comes around the bed to his usual side and Rey makes a dramatic roll to the empty half. She nestles under the sheets and Kylo lies on his side facing the wall so he can pretend she isn’t there. The last time they attempted this Rey couldn’t resist touching him—hopefully things will be different.

Her warmth ebbs through the thin sheet between them and keeps the muscle locking at bay. Kylo closes his eyes, sheet drawn up to his chin. This will be the first time he’s slept at night in quite a while. Typically he wakes after a few hours to stretch, but…

He exhales, clearing his throat. This will be fine.

—•—

Somehow, Kylo sleeps through the night.

He wakes to the chirping of birds and frail morning sun he typically falls asleep to, squinting, rubbing his eyes. It’s a strange sensation, sleeping through the night—sleeping _deeply_ , no less.

His muscles don’t give him the same trouble they always do as he slowly sits up in bed to test them. Still flexible; still soft. He runs his hand down his forearm and up to his bicep to check, pleased to find his body temperature is steady around ninety-eight. Exactly where it should be and plenty high enough to return to surgery. Thank fuck.

He glances down at Rey asleep on her stomach. She’s kicked off most of the sheets and her top has ridden up to her mid-back. Her skin glows faintly, sides gently expanding each time she breathes. It’s the most peaceful he’s ever seen her.

Kylo stares at the skin exposed on her narrow back. His typical hesitation has faded with the cold and he reaches out to brush her bare spine with his fingertips.

Rey twitches. Heat prickles up to his palm and wrist and he touches her again, light enough that he’s certain she won’t wake. The heat creeps higher, slightly more intense than the temperature of her skin. They must be very close.

He draws his hand away, swallowing. He’ll make breakfast. She’s bound to be hungry.

“Can you rub my back?”

Her voice is muffled in the pillow and scratchy from sleep. Kylo rubs his nape, realizing he’s been caught, and huffs.

“I’m going to make breakfast,” he says.

“Pleeeease?” Rey wriggles, arching her back so her shirt slides higher. “It’s really tight. And it’s probably your fault.”

“How is it _my_ fault?”

“I got your Cold germs on me now so I’m stiff. Your fault.”

Kylo snorts disdainfully, peering at her bare back from the corner of his eye. She’s ridiculous. He isn’t going to give her a massage. Ridiculous.

Rey turns her head and fixes him with her mottled hazel gaze. She raises her brows.

“…Fine!” he snaps. He adjusts in bed, pointing at her face. “Don’t say anything—”

“I know, I know.” Rey rolls her eyes and buries her face in her pillow once more. “You’re making it way weirder than it needs to be.”

Kylo mutters a retort, flexing his fingers to make sure they’re warm enough before placing one hand on her mid-back. Pleasant tingles skitter up his arm to his chest and he grits his teeth as he awkwardly rubs her back. Bony, but he already knew that.

Her skin is different than a Cold’s: softer, more pliant, glowing. He peels his eyes away while he massages her with one hand and tries to think of other things, like when he should try to enroll her in school, or when he should call the doctor. She’s much better now; perhaps she doesn’t need to go at all.

She _does_ need to go to school, however. Which grade, he isn’t sure. He could take some more time off work and help her catch up to her peers. Hire a tutor.

Rey sighs, drawing his gaze. She arches her back and small dimples appear there.

“Feels nice,” she mumbles. “Want me to do you?”

“No.”

She turns her head, fixating him with a shit-eating grin. There’s a pause and Kylo begins to withdraw, sensing she’s going to do something stupid.

She does. Rey pounces, throwing her thin arms around his neck and wrapping her legs around his waist before he can blink. Kylo almost topples off the side of the bed but catches himself on the edge, protectively circling her waist with his free arm in a split second decision. Fuck—son of a—

She laughs maniacally, clinging to him like a burr as he snaps at her to stop. He can’t quite get up but he loses his balance when he tries to turn and readjust and collapses on his side.

Rey rolls, much faster than him, and he’s suddenly on top of her, exactly where he doesn’t fucking want to be. Kylo swallows and catches his breath and tries to disentangle. He’s hard. The hot pressure feels painfully obvious and he tries pushing upright before Rey notices. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

But her small hands cup his face and it stops him in his tracks. He glimpses her hazel eyes searching his and she smiles, and he is mesmerized.

She kisses his upper lip. It’s quick, like her hummingbird kisses from the night before, and his heart gives a powerful beat. She lingers, brushing her lips along his, then kisses his lower lip, and pleasant tingles trickle down his chest. It’s a foreign sensation. Not quite lust.

Kylo doesn’t dare take a breath while Rey kisses him. He remains propped up on one hand, closing his eyes as she kisses the corner of his mouth and down to his chin, looping around to the other side. It’s feather-light and curious and feels lovely; feels like nothing he’s ever experienced. Cold women don’t have much need for foreplay or intimacy and neither does he.

Her languid exploration roams up his cheeks to his eyelids and the tip of his nose before returning to his mouth. She kisses his upper lip, mumbling, mouth moving on his. He stays perfectly still, eyes closed.

“Thanks for the back rub, daddy.”

Rey slips away before he can respond, gone in an instant like a flicker of light.

Kylo slowly rolls over on his back. He rubs his eyes for a minute, otherwise motionless, and his fingers drift down to his lips. He traces the seam, listening to the thrum of blood in his ears, replaying the encounter even though he shouldn’t.

But he does anyway, and licks the taste of her from his lips. She brushed her teeth.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic continues to be weird af

Hux calls as Kylo makes his way downstairs. He answers, pausing on the third step, gazing blankly towards the bottom.

“What?”

“Rose tells me the girl needs to see a doctor.”

Kylo nods. He rubs his thumb to his index finger.

“You know of someone?”

“Doctor Clark can see her next week,” Hux says. “From what Rose says, Rey is very close to the end, so he’s going to pencil her in.”

“Fine.” Kylo nods again, rubbing his jaw. “Text me the time and day.”

“Will do. Just keep her calm until then.”

Kylo hangs up and slips his phone in his sweatpants pocket. He remains still, listening to the sound of the television floating up the stairs. Good. She has an appointment with a doctor.

Downstairs he finds her watching cartoons on the flatscreen, one long leg draped over the back of the couch. He shuffles to the arm of the couch and she bends her neck back to look up at him. Her shirt swims around her belly button.

“…What would you like for breakfast?” he asks woodenly.

“Umm…” Rey furrows her brow and shrugs. “Pancakes or something?”

Hux texts the day and time of her appointment at that moment: Tuesday, 9 am. Good. That’s soon. Just three days away.

Rey tugs on his shirt. “Can you rub my feet?”

“I _just_ rubbed your back, Rey.”

“I know but I need my feet rubbed, too.”

Kylo turns away as he responds to Hux, ignoring Rey’s irritated whines. He’s still hard from their encounter a handful of minutes ago and won’t risk anything more. She has an appointment to see someone—all he has to do is keep his hands off her in the meantime.

“Daddy?”

He pauses. A few thoughts bounce around Kylo’s head but he doesn’t turn to look at Rey. Blood pounds in his ears; his pulse racing like it never has before.

“…What?” he acquiesces.

“Rub my feet.”

He huffs and shakes his head, glancing back to see her kneeling on the couch watching him. She grins and hops over the edge to follow him out to the kitchen.

“I preferred your sullen silence,” Kylo mutters. He opens the fridge, then remembers pancake mix is not refrigerated.

Rey sits at the island with a smug smile and doesn’t respond. She folds her arms and rests her head on them, humming to herself while he finds everything he needs to feed her. She’s turning into a spoiled brat _already_. Typical Warm.

Kylo cooks and avoids looking at her or speaking about what happened upstairs. It’s compartmentalized like everything else that’s happened with Rey, from the weird touches to the long looks to the looming inevitability of what he’s done to her. He cooks, and ignores.

They eat quietly. Rey inhales four pancakes in her usual messy manner, then licks her fingers clean. Kylo glares as he pulls a piece of pancake off his fork.

“Use a napkin,” he snaps.

She smiles and keeps licking her fingers. He continues to glare, irritation steadily galvanizing into anger. She knows what she’s doing. She pushes then reneges when she’s nervous, and tries to _guilt_ him, and smirks as soon as she gets her way.

He eats another piece of pancake, glowering as Rey hops down from her seat. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Her mouth wriggles suppressing a giggle. Kylo ignores her until she reaches out for his face.

His reflexes haven’t been fast for some time but—he seizes her wrist, and she squeals in shock, quickly pulling back. He lets go and she stumbles into the fridge as dramatically as possible, scowling like he pushed her.

“Wash your hands,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

Rey doesn’t answer. Her face is screwed up in anger, and he raises his brows a little higher before going back to his breakfast.

There’s a pause before she tries again.

This time he grabs both of her skinny wrists, dragging her between his knees. She huffs and twists so he stands, almost toppling over his chair—and he pins her against the edge of the island. She squirms and yelps and glares, glowing, climbing towards another one of her emotional outbursts.

“I _hate_ you!” she hisses. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate—”

Kylo isn’t sure what overcomes him, but he’s helpless against it. He kisses her.

…And lingers.

Her lips are so warm and soft that his other concerns slip into the background, mind focused entirely on how lovely her mouth feels. Rey pulls away an inch, whimpering, and he follows, shushing her, kissing her again. Soon her lips move with his and he grasps her face in both hands, forgetting her wrists.

He lets her withdraw the next time she tries. Her breaths come quick and her hazel eyes search his, confused and maybe aroused, and he realizes he’s made a _huge_ mistake.

Kylo’s hands detach from her face like she’s on fire. He swallows stiffly, eyes widening—he just kissed a teenage girl. Oh god. Oh no.

He doesn’t move, though. He’s frozen there, hands inches away from Rey’s lovey round face flecked with freckles. She scrunches her nose and he expects the worst: screaming or shouting or a good slap across the face. He deserves it. He should leave. She can have the apartment.

She leans on her tiptoes and kisses the tip of his nose instead. Kylo swallows the lump in his throat, hands trembling as he slowly sets them on the counter behind her. Her kisses wander across his cheeks like they did before, light and soft, and he can’t imagine peeling himself away from her.

Rey kisses her way to the corner of his mouth and he turns to catch her lips but she giggles and shakes her head, twisting away from him. Her small hands grasp the front of his shirt as he kisses her neck instead, coiling an arm around her slim back. Heat prickles up his chest—something he’s never felt before, even when having sex—and he pulls her in against him.

She giggles breathily. He’s taking too much again but he can’t stop kissing her neck; can’t resist rolling the thin skin through his teeth. She tastes like sunshine.

Then she slips away somehow—she’s in his arms one second and across the kitchen in another, hanging on the doorframe, biting her lower lip. He stares at her, mindlessly ambling in her direction, neurosurgeon brain reduced to expired porridge.

Rey turns to hide behind the doorframe, and he fears for a moment that she’s fled. But her hazel eyes peer out at him and she giggles again, and his entire being is suffused in relieved heat. Good. Good.

“You’re so weird,” she says.

“Am I?” His voice comes out rough and raspy and he clears his throat.

She nods, and when he moves another step she flits off.

Kylo pauses at the edge of the island, listening to her light footsteps ascend the stairs. His blood burns and his cock is _painfully_ hard but—he resists the urge to follow her. It’s better to wait for her to come to him. Less predatory. Better.

He rocks back on his heels, exhaling a shaky breath. Breakfast needs to be cleaned up, anyway.

—•—

Rey spends most of her day doing something upstairs, leaving Kylo to reread old case reports and send some emails. He should have no issues returning to work at this rate, and it’s best to get the ball rolling himself.

He decides to practice suturing an orange in the living room. His hands are as measured as ever—it’s effortless, muscle memory; like riding a bike. Soon he’s through the entire skin of the first orange and when he starts the second, loud footsteps come rushing down the stairs.

Rey plops next to him on the couch. He doesn’t look up from his work: she’s actually a fantastic distraction. Good surgeons aren’t swayed by distractions of any kind, and he is _better_ than any good surgeon. He’s the best.

She sits right beside him, resting her temple on his tense bicep. “Whatcha doin’, daddy?”

The word paired with her shirt, which is one of his and barely comes halfway down her thighs, Kylo is significantly distracted. He presses the needle through the orange skin anyway. There shouldn’t be any half naked teenage girls calling him daddy in the OR, but...

“Suturing,” he replies.

“Oh.” She peers over his arm, casually resting her palm on his inner thigh. “Awww, on one of my oranges?”

“It’s similar to human skin. I’ll buy you more.”

She huffs. He’s acutely aware of her hand’s proximity to his cock, and he tries his best not to draw her attention to it.

“I’m bored,” she sighs.

“I know.” He draws the needle through, nice and clean. Flawless. “You need to rest until you can see the doctor Tuesday.”

“Well I don’t _feel_ like resting.”

“Do you want to watch television?”

Rey heaves a dramatic sigh. She’s quiet for a minute, which by now should be a sign that she’s planning something. Still, Kylo carries on suturing, even managing to ignore her crawling under his arm. He adjusts his orange and needle as she slithers into his lap, facing forward, long legs propped up on the coffee table. Her head is under his chin , warmth pooling in his chest.

“I’m going to hang out with Finn,” she says.

“ _No_ , you aren’t. You need to stay home until you’re on medication.”

She groans, pressing her head back to look up at him. He’s almost done suturing—should probably practice more, even if he hasn’t lost his touch.

“When do I start school?” she asks.

“Probably in the fall for the new semester. I need to find a tutor to bring you up to speed with your peers.”

“Why? You think I’m stupid?”

“No, but you haven’t been to school in six years, and I want you to be successful.”

She grumbles, shifting in his lap. He also isn’t ready to let her leave him yet. At least this way he can have her home for the rest of spring and summer, before he’s working long hours during the day and she’s busy with school or her friends.

Kylo’s heart pounds as Rey continues to squirm, and he winces when her hand pushes on his thigh. She curls her knees up and grasps the front of his shirt, pulling to bring him closer—then she’s kissing his neck, and he doesn’t even pretend to try to stop her.

It’s… innocent, he rationalizes. She isn’t rubbing herself against him. Just kissing. Normal bonding behavior for Warms; they like touching and being touched, and he’s beginning to pick up her proclivity for it. His eyes flutter shut and his orange drops to the floor. They’re a valence—this is going to happen.

Still, Kylo keeps his arm on the side of the couch and the other loosely supporting her back. Rey can kiss him if she wants to, but he shouldn’t touch her.

Her light kisses wind up to his mouth. His eyes are still closed as she kisses his lower lip, then the top, and his fingers twitch on the arm of the couch. He’s seized by a violent urge to _grab_ her—he isn’t sure what he’s going to do after he does but his mind is too mired in heat and pleasure to care.

She wriggles her cheek free of his palm when he cups it, trying to kiss her. Her chin turns up and her head leans back and he gets the message.

“Do me,” Rey chirps. Her voice is a little rough, and she hurriedly moves her hair away from her neck. “Please.”

It’s a very bad idea. It’s more intimate than kissing her mouth, somehow, but Kylo settles his hand on her waist and greedily gives in.

His head swims, fingers pressing into her soft belly as he mouths then sucks the thin skin in his mouth. Going to leave a mark—she’s going to have hickies—but he can’t resist doing it again and again, and she makes a soft moaning gasp that has his hand winding up her back. His fingertips tingle as they glide up her smooth back; she isn’t wearing a bra, and she feels like a live wire. She’s like a shot of cocaine lighting up his veins, and her glowing body curled in his lap is delicate and lovely and he thinks he would like to feel her from the inside—

“Ouch!”

The world glimmers when Kylo opens his eyes, just as Rey is skittering away from him. She’s clutching her neck, frowning, a thin trail of light following her.

Her scarred forearm falls away. Her neck is littered with purple love bites but it gives him more of a thrill than the expected jolt of guilt. It’s fucked up. It shouldn’t be arousing. It’s fucked up.

“Too hard, daddy,” she snaps.

Before Kylo can reply, Rey storms off. Her footsteps stomp up the stairs and a door slams. He leans back, breathless, passing a hand through his hair and absentmindedly adjusting his cock.

Sparkles dance along his periphery, head swimming. He tastes sugar. If he didn’t know any better, he would think he was having a stroke.


	10. Chapter 10

It becomes increasingly difficult for Kylo to think straight—it becomes increasingly difficult to think of anything except Rey.

He spends the rest of the evening struggling to focus on his hundreds of emails. He sets up an appointment to have his return to work checkup the following week, and pores over old notes and textbooks, reminding himself of things he already knows.

None of it helps. He drifts off to kissing her on the couch; how her hips felt in his hands and her skin tasted on his tongue. More than once he slips so profoundly into fantasy that he loses track of time, gazing blankly at his inbox, unblinking. Warmth ebbs through his limbs and up his spine and his eyes travel to the stairs.

Kylo rubs his mouth, exhaling a shaky breath in the dark living room. Fuck.

Rey doesn’t join him for dinner. Without Mitaka around to prepare something, Kylo settles for spaghetti with pre-made marinara. He leaves a serving in the refrigerator for Rey before he retires for the night. She’ll eat if she’s hungry.

—•—

Sunday morning comes, and Kylo wakes alone in his bed.

His thoughts haven’t improved. He rubs his face, groaning at the invasive memories of Rey squirming in his lap, and absentmindedly adjusts his cock. Morning wood hasn’t been an issue for him for many years but it certainly is now. Repeatedly.

Masturbating is tempting but there’s a strong possibility Rey will barge into his bedroom at some point, so he winces and ignores the urge. He hasn’t _felt_ the urge in many years, either. Sex is more of a habit for him, and prostitutes were an easy way to indulge with no commitment or attachment.

Now, however—well, he feels like a teenage boy again, before the cold crystallized in his bloodstream and froze his sex drive. It’s difficult to think of much else besides his cock.

Kylo showers and brushes his teeth and dresses. Downstairs he doesn’t find Rey, which seems odd. She may be avoiding him.

He scratches the back of his head, staring at the empty couch. Maybe he should check on her.

His limbs are heavy with something other than cold as he ascends the stairs and walks down the hall to Rey’s bedroom. It reminds him of the dread on his first day of his internship, when the world swirled around him and he realized how little he knew.

Kylo knocks, swallowing before speaking.

“Rey?” he calls.

Quiet ensues. He waits, not wanting to bother her _too_ much if she’s simply trying to avoid him.

“What?”

Her reply is sharp; irritated. Good. At least she isn’t out walking the streets.

“Did you eat dinner?” he asks.

“What’s it to you?”

“You need to eat.”

She huffs loud enough for him to hear through the door. The bed creaks and he hears feet pad quickly on the floor before the door is yanked open.

Rey’s hair is in a sloppy ponytail and her neck is littered with purple hickies of varying sizes. She’s wearing one of her new shirts that slips from her shoulder and black leggings that come halfway down her calves. He stares at her neck. Her skin glows.

“Stop bugging me!” she snaps. “You’re always _bugging_ me!”

Her hand is on her hip and her scarred forearm is on full display. He did that to her—all of it. Instead of shame and regret there is a flicker of arousal as her warmth gradually suffuses him, melting the cold rationality that should send him back downstairs to resume avoiding her.

Kylo stares. His fingers twitch at his side as he is seized by the same powerful urge to _grab_ her that struck him last night. He shouldn’t. He won’t.

Rey searches his face, nose scrunched, and she huffs and lowers her eyes to the floor. She crosses her arms and doesn’t look up.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “Kind of tense.”

She is—they’re both tense because the distance between them is unnatural and they shouldn’t be actively avoiding each other. Unfortunately, nature and kismet think nothing of human morals.

Keeping her at arm’s length isn’t helping either of them. Rey is ill from it and he is soon to follow. Neither can possibly wait two years until she reaches an arbitrary age. Eighteen—what difference does it make in the end?

Kylo flexes his hand.

“Did you eat?” he repeats.

“ _Yes_ , I had spaghetti.” Rey rolls her green eyes, looking up at him in the process. “Even though my neck hurts.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Why does it hurt?”

Rey huffs. Her skin glows brighter, red swirling under her cheeks like the glittering arm of a spiral galaxy. Shyness in women is usually unattractive but the more he flusters her feeble attempts to be assertive, the more he begins to enjoy it.

Kylo brushes two fingertips along her red cheek. The color bleeds into his skin, fading as it reaches his knuckle.

“Was I too rough?” he asks as gently as he can manage. She shrugs but doesn’t look up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

She doesn’t respond. Her feet are bare and she rolls her toes on the hardwood floor, arms still crossed.

He would like to be rough. He certainly doesn’t want to hurt her, but he _would_ like to bend her over more than one of his pieces of expensive furniture. It’s an odd impulse for Kylo, and one that gives him pause, the same way his pleasure in seeing her covered in love bites confused him.

His gaze wanders down her neck along with his fingers, lightly tracing a small purple bruise.

“How can I make it up to you?”

Rey shrugs again, twisting her toe into the floor. She alternates between painfully shy and obnoxious aggression, and Kylo finds her prefers the prior—but her climbing into his lap unannounced and kissing his neck was welcome, too.

He cups her neck in his palm, stroking his thumb across her cheek. “Why don’t you show me like you did yesterday?”

Another shrug. He begins to think it’s a lost cause; maybe he’s coming on too strong and made her too nervous. But before he can move, Rey arches on her tiptoes and kisses him.

His fingers tangle in her hair, free arm wrapping around her back to pull her in for a deeper kiss. Rey grasps his shirt and squirms in his arms but kisses him back, hesitant and unsure for a minute, then clutching his face.

Heat radiates through Kylo’s teeth and skull. She tastes like sugar and sets his nerves alight, driving every wanton impulse into the forefront of his thoughts which he feels helpless to resist. She tastes like nothing else he’s ever had and he staggers into her bedroom, still kissing her, body vibrating with excitement. He wants more. All of it.

He kicks the door shut with his heel. Rey startles, breaking their kiss, so he carefully trails kisses down her neck instead. She teeters backwards with little pressure; just his forward motion is enough to move her in the direction he wants.

She squeaks as she topples into her bed. Kylo has the wherewithal to step out of his shoes before following her but has no capacity to use his brain beyond that point. He crawls on top of Rey and tries kissing her again, but she catches his mouth with her palms.

“Wait!” she exclaims.

He pauses. Blood pounds hot and hungry in his veins and boils away any last ounces of shame.

Rey pulls her hands away quickly, wiping them on his shirt. He leans in to kiss her and she frantically pushes him away by the mouth again. He grunts, irritated.

“Don’t…” Her cheeks swirl faint red. “Don’t stick it in me. Please.”

Kylo raises his eyebrows. She blushes deeper red and twists over on her stomach to hide her face in the pillows.

“And don’t look at me!” she demands, voice muffled.

His eyebrows remain raised. Rey stays on her stomach with her face buried and doesn’t say anything more.

Kylo twists his neck, stifling a groan. She doesn’t want to have penetrative sex—that’s fine. Frustrating. But fine. He isn’t going to impose anything on her. He lowers himself to his forearms and Rey squirms as he presses some weight into her, wriggling her ass against his cock.

He exhales sharply. Fuck.

“Fuck,” Kylo breathes out loud. He pulls her hip up, angling her into his groin. “Good girl.”

She whimpers. He’s never said it before to a woman, because it’s never crossed his mind and he assumes most wouldn’t like it, but it tumbles out with Rey and he doesn’t bother apologizing for it.

“Thank you, daddy,” Rey mumbles.

He rolls her on her back, drawing a surprised yelp. She blushes, huffing and shaking her head as he kisses the corner of her mouth and settles between her thighs.

“Don’t pout,” Kylo murmurs in her ear. “Good girls don’t pout.”

“You’re looking at me.”

“Only a little.”

She grumbles, but her bellyaching gives way to more whimpers as Kylo slowly rolls his hips. The rough fabric against his cock helps keep his arousal in check, which he typically doesn’t need—but Rey does all sorts of strange things to him.

The glow fades from her skin. She pants and squirms into his thrusts, fingers clutching at his shoulder blades, knees tight on his hips. She isn’t very vocal—nerves, probably—but he doesn’t mind. Kylo closes his eyes and his lips brush her cheek while he listens to her soft whines and breaths. It’s lovely. He doesn’t often bother listening to the women he’s with, but he slows to a stop once or twice just to make Rey whimper for him; just to prolong his time with her.

Kylo grasps her jaw, resting on his forearm to kiss her. His hips still, cock slotted against her warm center, and Rey wriggles.

“I think I’m close,” she whispers, soft lips moving against his while she speaks.

“Are you?”

She nods. Her eyes flutter shut and she nods a bit quicker, and he strokes her lower lip with his thumb. It’s obscene. It’s all his.

Her lips part, brows lifting—Rey gasps and bucks, and he kisses her, muffling her moan in his mouth. Nails dig in to his shoulder blades and he _feels_ it; truly feels it in a way he’s never been able to.

Kylo shivers as he climaxes with her. For a blissful handful of seconds, he is swept away by his Warm girl, cocooned in her embrace, and nothing else matters.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these two have a weird dynamic
> 
> also sorry I haven’t been responding to comments but I’m writing really rapidly so I just haven’t had timeeeee

Sunday afternoon shapes up to be one of the most pleasant days Kylo has had in many, many years.

He isn’t drowsy after his encounter with Rey—he’s energized, warm from the tips of his ears to the tips of his toes, and he lies in bed for some time gazing at the ceiling, enjoying the sensation. Rey dozes off against his ribs and he listens to her soft snores, rubbing his hand along her back. It’s been years since he’s felt this… _alive._

Kylo slowly sits up in Rey’s bed, sliding his arm gently from behind her neck. His watch glows with a welcome temperature: 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Homeostasis. Human body temperature, something he hasn’t experienced since childhood. It inspires some strong emotion in him; stirs his heart and tightens his throat. He stares at it for a moment, then glances down at Rey.

Her mouth is open and she’s drooling on the pillow. Her hair is a tangled mess. She looks so young and peaceful that another powerful surge of emotion clenches in Kylo’s chest, and he rubs absentmindedly, staring down at her in silence. So young. Despite his best efforts, he’s left her with even more purple bruises along her neck and collarbone.

The pain intensifies. Crushing: what he’s always thought a heart attack may feel like.

He quietly leaves the bedroom and returns to his own to wash up. Burning pain carries on up his throat into the roof of his mouth as he shuts himself in his master bath, and he sags on the edge of the counter, gasping for breath. What the fuck?

And his eyes suddenly blur, and his throat spasms—Kylo coughs as he sobs, choking on it in shock. He clutches the cold edge of the counter as another sob wracks him, then another, and the tears in his eyes roll down his cheeks. He’s crying, he thinks. It’s been so long that he’s forgotten what it feels like.

It’s dizzying: the depth and breadth of emotion is almost too much to bear. Kylo sinks to the floor, leaning on the cabinets and struggling to stifle his sobs; trying to hazard out _why_ he’s sobbing at all. He didn’t even shed a tear when his own father died because it would have been pointless and futile and it doesn’t right any wrongs or bring back the dead.

But it’s impossible to fight, try as he might. He turns on the shower to drown out his strangled breaths, resting against the cabinets and breathing heavily as steam fills the room. This doesn’t make sense.

—•—

It takes some time, but the crying jag ends and Kylo manages to shower. His eyes are red and swollen; he looks fucking ridiculous, and he washes his face several times to hide it. He’s a fucking _brain surgeon_. Is he going to break down into tears in the OR when a patient dies?

He dresses in a black sweater and jeans, his usual clothing, but finds it miserably hot. Very little of his closet is short-sleeved but he finds a black T-shirt, and it makes him emotional all over again. Kylo rubs his chest and grimaces to stop the tears, pacing his bedroom in a wide circle. This is fucking insane. What the fuck is this?

“Get a fucking grip,” he hisses to himself. He brushes a hand through his hair and pulls. “Get a fucking grip.”

Easier said than done. It takes several more minutes until Kylo is composed enough to go check on Rey. They should talk. He expects her to be downstairs shoveling food down her throat but she’s still lying facedown in bed. It looks like she hasn’t moved since he left.

Kylo pauses at her door, thumbing the handle. Odd. He expected her to up racing around by now.

“Rey?” he calls.

She doesn’t respond. He waits another minute, then ambles to her bedside.

He touches her hair with her fingertips. Pleasant sparks buzz up to his wrist and he threads his fingers further into her tangled locks, shivering at the peculiar sensation running up his arm. He’s never liked touch— _touching_ or being _touched_. It’s alien to derive pleasure from it.

“Rey? Would you like something to eat?”

She grunts.

Kylo sits on the edge of her bed. Her hair is fine and detangles easily on his fingers, and she doesn’t rebuke him or complain. Warmth seeps into the far reaches of his broad chest and down into his stomach—it’s another emotion he can’t place. It’s been so long since he’s felt much of anything.

“Why’s your voice weird?” Rey’s voice is muffled by the pillow but her question is distinct enough.

“…Allergies,” he lies.

“Uh huh.”

She rolls to her back, eyebrows raised, lids hooded. He’s never seen her so exhausted, and it’s alarming enough to summon a cold prickle of anxiety. It suffuses him like the other emotions he’s experienced so far, and Kylo swallows, struggling to conceal it.

“Are you feeling okay, Rey?” he asks.

“Mm.” She nods, eyes fluttering shut. “‘M tired. Gonna sleep.”

Kylo loosens his fingers from her hair to cup her cheek. “You should eat. Why don’t I bring you something?”

“M’kay,” Rey slurs. “I’ll be here.”

She dozes off against his palm. Kylo runs his tongue inside his cheek, then peels off his watch to wrap it around her wrist. Several seconds pass and he keeps his fingers delicately wrapped around her small hand. If there’s an issue… well, he isn’t going to sit around and wait for it to worsen.

The screen lights up: 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That can’t be right.

Kylo removes the watch and resets it. He puts it back on Rey’s limp wrist and finds the same reading, so he tries a third time, and it returns the same reading. Ninety-eight point six. Balanced, like he is. But she’s so _exhausted_ —surely something must be wrong.

He rises from the bed. She’s unconscious, lips parted, and Kylo stares as he replaces his watch on his wrist. His jaw shifts from side-to-side, pain creeping into his chest. He’s done something wrong beyond molesting and kidnapping her. She must be ill. He should call Hux; should bring her to the hospital.

Instead, gut teeming with guilt and a warm flush of pleasure, he reaches down to brush her cheek with his fingertips. Soft static moves up his arm as he strokes her skin, and Rey sighs in her sleep.

Kylo withdraws. He rubs his chest roughly when he leaves the room, flinching at the tension paralyzing his voice. Maybe he’s ill, too.

—•—

Kylo returns to Rey with a grilled cheese—since she’s so fond of raccoon food—and a bowl of tomato soup.

He sets her food on the nightstand and rouses her as gently as he can. She whines and swats but eventually he coaxes her into sitting upright, scowling and pouting with her arms crossed. Her hair is a mess and that gives him an excuse to touch her. He’s been thinking of it since the moment he left her room.

Rey doesn’t seem receptive. Her typically vibrant eyes are soft hazel and they flutter shut for a moment.

“Not hungry,” she mutters.

“No?” Kylo tentatively places a hand on her knee that’s hidden under the blankets. “But you’re always hungry.”

She huffs, lazily combing her fingers through her hair to fix it. Rey scoots to the edge of the bed beside him and reaches over for her grilled cheese, so Kylo takes the opportunity to fix her hair. Each feathery brush pools warm and heavy in his gut, and Rey ignores him as she takes a small bite of her sandwich. She chews slowly, gaze blank and forward.

It’s addictive, he realizes. He’s never abused drugs but the closer he comes to detangling Rey’s hair, the more he wonders if the experience is similar. He doesn’t want to stop touching her. It’s bizarre and upsetting and pathetic, and he clenches his jaw, fighting to repress the strange emotion. There’s something seriously wrong with him. Psychologically.

Rey finishes her sandwich and tries to pick up her spoon. Her fingers are limp and she struggles to grasp it, whining irately as she pushes it toward the edge of her tray.

Kylo peels himself away from touching her hair to pick up the spoon for her. On the days his body temperature drops low enough, he often can’t bend his fingers to pick up cutlery, but Rey’s fingers aren’t rigid—they’re almost entirely flaccid.

“Can’t pick it up,” she mumbles. She sags against his arm, moaning softly. “I’m so tired, daddy.”

“I know. But you should eat some soup.”

Rey whines some more. It would annoy him on any other day but he finds it amusing this afternoon, and he finds it pleasurable when she allows him to spoon-feed her. His body hums with heat as she eats her soup bite by bite, some strange new emotion seeping into his brain. This is fucking ridiculous. She can eat on her own. He doesn’t need to baby her.

But still Kylo feeds her, and derives a great deal of… _something_ from it. Happiness is a fleeting foreign emotion like so many of the rest and he’s hesitant to assign it to whatever is fluttering in his stomach. It should be impossible. It is impossible.

Rey finishes her soup and drinks most of her bottle of water. She yawns when she’s done and gets up to use the restroom. Kylo watches her while he collects her dishes, concerned she may fall, but the door clicks shut and he doesn’t hear anything more.

He brings the dishes downstairs and leans over the edge of the sink. It’s quiet, sunlight streaming in through the windows, which is his normal sleeping time. But he’s wide awake and Rey clouds his mind like she has been more and more since they met. He should be preparing to return to work now that his temperature is stable, but he would much prefer staying home with his Warm girl.

Kylo hates staying home. He shivers, rubbing his mouth. He’s always preferred to work as much as possible—and it’s unnerving the way his switch has flipped so abruptly and profoundly.

He turns, pensive, and finds Rey standing quietly at the side of the island.

She’s wearing one of his sweaters and it swims halfway down her thighs. One shoulder is sliding off and the sleeves are too long. It gives him another warm syrupy rush of dopamine.

Her hair is damp and her eyes are still hooded and sleepy. She gazes up at him and yawns.

“Wanna watch TV?”

Kylo swallows, trying to keep his eyes on her face. The sweater drops quite a bit in the front.

“…Sure,” he replies. “Nice shirt.”

“Thanks. I stole it.”

He drums his fingers on the counter behind him.

“Are you feeling any better, Rey?”

She nods, yawning again. At least she’s out of bed and moving, but if she’s ill she should go to the hospital. Even though he’d rather not bring her.

“I’m fine,” she says, waving him off and turning away. “Just tired. Must be because of your giant dick.”

Kylo stiffens. His fingers tighten on the edge of the counter and she casts him a smug smirk over her narrow shoulder, eyebrows wiggling suggestively. His cheeks burn up to his ears—he’s fucking blushing. What the fuck.

Rey laughs, letting her head fall back as she carries on out to the living room. Kylo huffs and glares after her, rubbing his cheeks to conceal the blush. Brat. Should’ve let her starve.

She rolls over the back of the couch. “Can you come rub my feet, daddy?”

“Haven’t I spoiled you enough today?”

“No.”

He rolls his eyes. At least some things aren’t changing.

Rey is lying on her back with her eyes closed when he approaches. She cracks one open and lifts a limp hand, an unspoken request for him to help her sit up.

Kylo pulls her upright and sits beside her. Rey burrows under his arm.

“You’re enjoying this too much,” he mutters, grimacing when she grabs his thigh to arrange herself.

“I could say the same about you, _daddy_.”

He looks down at her. She’s peering up at him, brow furrowed, and lips pressed in a firm line. She could. Against all reason, he enjoys her calling him that.

Kylo searches her eyes and leans in to kiss her. Rey seems to be expecting it and she grabs the front of his shirt, already easing her weight back so he is forced to follow. He drops the remote on the floor and kneels on the couch as Rey wraps her long tan legs around his hips. It’s all in one fluid motion, like two pieces of a puzzle clicking together.

She swallows loudly as his kisses wind down her throat, hips slotting against hers. Her thighs tighten around him and he exhales a low groan.

“Don’t stick it in me,” she demands, sharp and shaky. Her hands settle on his biceps. “I don’t want to get pregnant.”

Kylo nods, roughly kissing her neck the way he can’t seem to resist. Sure—she’s sixteen. Would be difficult to bring his pregnant teenage valence to functions and galas without losing his medical license. That’s fine, even if a more primitive part of him would very much like to impregnate her.

Rey squeezes his arms. He isn’t entirely fond of dry humping fully-clothed but his blood is pumping now and he is happy to take whatever she wants to give him. The couch creaks as he adjusts his hips between her legs, heart pounding. She smells clean and fresh and faintly of his cologne.

Her fingers idle down his ribs to the hem of his jeans. Rey rubs her nails lightly up his bare back and giggles when it makes him groan again, deeper this time. 

“You can take off your pants,” she says.

Thank fuck. Kylo leans back, upright as he unbuckles his belt. Rey’s cheeks are flushed pink and she squirms while he works open his pants and pushes them just far enough down his hips. She stares and stares and then she reaches out and brushes her fingertips along his cock, still tucked away in his briefs.

He grabs the back of the couch. He should stop her, but he just watches instead as she curiously touches him again, then wraps her fingers around his length. She squeezes. It feels fucking incredible—his cock twitches in her palm and he is suddenly faced with a problem he’s never experienced before.

“— _Fuck_!” Kylo breathes. He seizes her wrist with his free hand to stop her before he comes in his underwear. “Too sensitive.”

“Can I see it?”

“Let’s… let’s just…” He swallows, squeezing his eyes shut and opening them again. “Wait. Let’s wait.”

“You can touch me, too.”

 _Fuck_ , he thinks. His head swims and his cock pulses in her soft hand, and Kylo takes a few deep breaths through his nose. He can’t. This is bad enough—this is simulating sex.

Rey shakes her wrist free of his hand. She takes it, and draws his wrist between her legs. It wouldn’t be hard to resist and it wouldn’t be hard to refuse, but he lets her, and his hand disappears beneath the hem of the sweater. He stares blankly at the shuffle of fabric and glances up when she squirms.

“See?” Rey presses his palm between her legs and his teeth click together. “Just don’t… don’t put your fingers inside me, daddy.”

Her panties are thin and Kylo feels the heat of her against the heel of his palm. Her shy demands are doing very strange things to him, and she’s certainly throwing in his new name for added effect. He draws his hand down, prickling with arousal when his middle finger brushes her clit and she whimpers. It’s all obscene. He’s never been so turned on in his life.

He gently massages her with the pad of his middle finger. Rey’s hips roll and her hand falls away from his cock. He doesn’t care. She’s so warm and lovely and responsive to his touch.

Her body trembles, lips parting. Steadily she climbs toward climax; he can tell by her flush and the increasingly erratic thrusts of his hips. Kylo watches and quietly praises her every now and again, because she seems to enjoy it as much as he does. He doesn’t slip his fingers under the hem of her panties even though he would like to _really_ feel her skin against his own.

Rey paws at his shirt, whining, eyes hooded and dark. “Daddy—closer now.”

He obliges, settling between her quivering thighs. This time there is very little between them save for two thin strips of fabric.

“You’re so spoiled,” Kylo pants on her neck. His orgasm is already imminent and he roughly thrusts against her, enjoying her soft whimpers. “Aren’t you? You’re my spoiled little Warm girl.”

Rey nods. His thoughts keep spinning faster and faster out of control: he would like to pull her thin little panties aside and fuck her, and he would like her to be surprised by how much she enjoys it. Maybe some pleading and whimpers at first; some gentle confusion. But she’ll enjoy it.

Kylo’s fantasy plays at the fringe of his mind as Rey comes and it persists through his own climax. He is suffused in warmth again; delirious from the pleasure of being entirely at the mercy of the girl writhing beneath him. It’s exactly where he’s always wanted to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: @malreverie  
> carrd: malevolentreverie.carrd.co


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